Clinical Trials

All cancer treatments begin with science — and science involves studies like clinical trials.

Participating in clinical trials has two major advantages: first, it gives you access to the latest cancer treatment advances available, and second, it helps you pave the way for others who face a cancer diagnosis after you.

Are there any risks to participating in clinical trials?

Every medical treatment comes with some level of risk, but by the time new medications are made available for clinical trials, researchers have enough information to be confident in their safety and efficacy.

The objective of many clinical trials is not to ensure the safety of the new treatment, but to determine if the new treatment works better than the standard, prevailing treatments.

The cancer specialists overseeing your care will carefully monitor your progress to see if your treatment is working better than the standard treatments. If it is not, they may suggest unenrolling from the clinical trial and pursuing other treatments.

Does joining a clinical trial mean I won’t get the treatment I need?

When you participate in a clinical trial, you either receive the standard treatment or the new treatment researchers are studying — you do not receive a placebo.

The clinical trial is intended to explore of the latest science is an improvement over the established treatment protocols most cancer specialists recommend. That means participating in clinical trials can give you access to the latest, most sophisticated treatments that may be better able to target and fight your cancer than the standard treatments available.