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A clinical trial is a medical research study that involves volunteers and helps doctors
find better treatments for cancer.
Clinical trials can offer people with cancer additional options for their treatment, and
it is important to talk about both the potential benefits and risks of each study with your
doctor and the study’s research team.
Clinical trials are used for all types and stages of cancer.
When patients are seeing their physician to begin to think about how to best treat their
cancer, one of the first things that they should think about, really, are clinical trials.
In today’s clinical trial environment, the studies are there to help patients and provide
the most innovative therapy.
And in fact, there are data now to demonstrate that patients that are going on clinical trials
actually do better than ones that don't get treated on a clinical trial.
There are many resources available to help you find clinical trials that you may be able
to take part in.
Talking first with your cancer specialist is a good place to start.
There is sometimes so much information out there that it’s hard to coalesce it and
really bring it into something that’s understandable for the individual.
The best place and usually the first place to start is by asking their medical oncologist,
"are there clinical trials that I am eligible for?"
Many online resources are also available for patients to research which clinical trials
may be right for them.
The search for a clinical trial should be a partnership between the patient and their
oncologist.
A patient may go on a website, enter a few search criteria and find a list of clinical
trials that may be applicable to their situation.
That would be a great time to go back to their physician and say "Hey, this is what I found,
what makes sense for me?
What drugs are you seeing?
What do you think might be the best option?
And their medical oncologist can help them sort through it.
And so it becomes really a back and forth relationship where the patient becomes their
best advocate and their medical oncologist really aids in that process.
Clinical trials follow strict rules in order to keep patients safe, structure the research,
and study the effects of new treatments.
It is important for patients to understand that each clinical trial has specific criteria,
and that they may not be eligible for certain trials.
We have to understand that clinical trials are essentially a set of rules.
And, unfortunately, their oncologist or the investigator doesn’t have the liberty to
break those rules.
And sometimes those rules include specific types of patients with different prior therapies
or different locations of their disease, etc., etc., where the clinical trial is looking
for a patient population that might be specific and, unfortunately, the patient may not fit
into it.
If a patient is not eligible for a certain clinical trial, it doesn’t mean that there
isn’t another clinical trial that is suited for them.
What I encourage patients to do is think about clinical trials, talk to their physician about
clinical trials.
Go into the process with the knowledge that they may not be eligible for every clinical
trial that looks attractive.
Not to get frustrated and continue to think about it throughout their entire treatment
process.
Even after they’ve been treated for their cancer, there are a lot of different studies
that are looking at survivorship or other issues in patients.
There are several internet sites that are excellent—Cancer.Net is one of those sites.
But in addition to that, there’s Clinicaltrials.gov.
But I’d also go to the local cancer center website and most NCI Designated Cancer Centers
now will have a specific area on their website that’s dedicated to clinical trials.
For more information on what clinical trials are, things to consider in treatment decision-making,
and how to find a clinical trial that may be right for you, patients and their loved
ones can visit Cancer.Net/clinicaltrials.
One of the best resources, quite honestly, for patients that are trying to navigate not
only their disease, but for clinical trials, is Cancer.Net.
It’s written in lay language so that it’s easy to understand.
It also provides links to different clinical trials for that specific situation.
And it can really help patients get through what sometimes can be a very confusing process.
It is really set up with the patient in mind and to help them navigate the situation.
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