Glossary
Also written provocation
A provocation test administers a substance in order to measure what the body does in response, usually a hormone release, and then stops. It is a diagnostic and physiological instrument rather than a treatment, and the response it measures is the endpoint.
The distinction matters when a compound's trial count is read as evidence for a therapeutic use. Several growth hormone secretagogues in this index carry substantial numbers of trial-type publications that are almost entirely provocation studies: the peptide is given once, or over a few hours, and growth hormone or cortisol release is measured. Such a study establishes that the compound does something measurable. It does not establish that doing it produces a clinical outcome in a person who is not deficient, and it was not designed to.