Clinical trials
Clinical trials are cancer research studies that involve people. Their main purpose is to find a better way to prevent, diagnose or treat a disease and they form part of a long, careful research process.
Patients who participate in a clinical trial receive drugs or procedures that have already been researched successfully in laboratory and/or animal studies, with most trials involving new drugs or procedures. Some, however, do study drugs or procedures that have already received approval by the UK’s Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
All patients who participate in clinical trials are volunteers – they can choose to stop their participation in a clinical trial at any time.
Types of clinical trials:
- Therapeutic trials test new drugs, surgery techniques, radiation therapy procedures or other treatment methods on people with specific types and stages of cancer.
- Prevention trials study how healthy people may prevent cancer. People at high risk of getting cancer may benefit from participation in a prevention trial.
- Early-detection/screening trials discover ways to find early-stage cancer.
- Diagnostic trials find new and better ways to determine if someone has cancer – and, if so, where the cancer is located in the body; how much cancer is there; and whether or not it has spread to other parts of the body.
- Quality of life/supportive care trials seek to improve the comfort and quality of life of patients and their families or caregivers.