Programs

What are clinical trials?
Clinical trials or treatment protocols are research involving people. Through clinical trials, doctors find new ways to improve treatments and quality of life for people with the disease.

Researchers design cancer clinical trials to test new ways of:

• Treating cancer
• Detect and diagnose it
• Prevent it
• Treating your symptoms or the side effects of your treatment

Clinical trials are the final step in a long process that begins with research in a laboratory. Before any new treatment is used on people in clinical trials, researchers work for many years to understand its effects on cancer cells in the laboratory and in animals. They also try to determine what side effects they may cause.

When you or a loved one needs treatment for cancer, clinical trials are an option to consider and are available for all stages of cancer. It is a myth that clinical trials are only for people who have advanced cancer that does not respond to treatment. To search for available trials, see our Available Treatments section.

What is the importance of clinical studies?
Today, people are living longer because of more successful cancer treatments that are the result of past clinical trials. Through clinical trials, doctors determine whether new treatments are safe and effective and whether they work better than current treatments.

Clinical trials also help us find new ways to prevent and detect cancer. And they help us improve people's quality of life during and after treatment. By participating in a clinical trial, you contribute to our knowledge about cancer and help us improve cancer care and treatment for future patients. Clinical trials are the key to making progress against cancer.

Why participate in a clinical trial?
By participating in a research study, the patient has access to treatments that may be more effective and even have fewer side effects but are not yet available on the market because they are still in the research stage.

Why are therapies free of charge?
Clinical trials test new drugs, devices or treatments. In some cases, participation will not cost you or your insurance company anything.

Health insurance companies and study sponsors, or pharmaceuticals, cover the costs of therapies and often offer financial assistance to cover other treatment-related expenses.

Who can participate?
Every clinical trial has a protocol or study plan that describes what will be done in the study, how it will be conducted and why each part of the study is necessary. The protocol also includes the requirements that must be met in order to participate in a study. These requirements are the eligibility criteria.

Common eligibility criteria:

• Having a certain type or stage of cancer
• Having received (or not having received) a certain type of therapy in the past
• Having specific genetic changes in the tumor
• Belonging to an age group
• Medical history
• Current health status

Criteria such as these help keep medical differences among study participants to a minimum. When study participants are similar in key characteristics, researchers can be more confident that the results are due to the treatment being tested and not to other factors.

Some people have health problems other than cancer that may be made worse by the study treatments. If you are interested in participating in a study, certain medical tests will be done to make sure you meet the requirements of the study.

How to enter a clinical study?
Every research study is different. Each study tries to find answers to a specific question. Researchers must follow strict rules to decide who can participate in the study.