Understanding Cancer Clinical Trials

Many of us may wonder what exactly clinical trials are, or more specifically, what they may involve. After all, clinical trials are a crucial component to developing new, more effective treatments that can help save lives.

Clinical trials are the study and behavioral research on human volunteers that are designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral treatment. The treatment may be a new drug or a new use for an older drug.

The treatment could also be a new device or a new surgical technique. Clinical trials are an excellent way for people to help medical professionals find ways to improve cancer care, and patients benefit by having access to new cancer treatments and options not otherwise available.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), clinical trials are imperative to developing new methods to prevent, detect and treat cancer. It is through clinical trials that researchers can determine whether new treatments are safe and effective and work better than current treatments.

Clinical trials are so important because they can help find therapies when no standard treatment exists. The advantages of clinical trials include not only getting the research opinions of those working on the trial, but also opinions from the largest group of cancer researchers across the world.

Treatments, screenings, clinical trials and prevention for breast cancer and other types of cancer are being greatly improved by ongoing clinical trials, which are just one piece of the puzzle in bringing new knowledge, techniques, protocols and awareness to such a widespread disease.