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Clinical Trials
At the beginning of your treatment (or subsequent treatments) your doctor may discuss with you the possibility of being entered into a clinical trial. The following text helps explain what a clinical trial is, and why they are important in trying to advance and improve future cancer treatments.
Research into new ways of treating cancer is going on all the time. Cancer doctors are continually looking for new ways to treat the disease and they do this by using clinical trials. Many hospitals now take part in these trials. If early work suggests that a new treatment might be better than the standard treatment, cancer doctors will carry out trials to compare the new treatment with the best available standard ones. This is called a controlled clinical trial and is the only reliable way of testing a new treatment. So that the treatments can be compared accurately, the type of treatment a patient receives is decided at random, by a computer – and not by the doctor treating the patient, so he or she doesn’t unintentionally bias the result of the trial.
In a randomised controlled clinical trial, some patients will receive the best standard treatment while others will receive the new treatment, which may or may not prove to be better than the standard treatment. A treatment is better either because it is more effective against the tumour or because it is equally effective and has fewer unpleasant side effects. The reason why your doctor would like you to take part in a trial is because until the new treatment has been tested scientifically in this way it is impossible for doctors to know which is the best one to choose for their patients.
Before any trial is allowed to take place it must have been approved by an ethics committee. Your doctor must have informed consent, which means that you know what the trial is all about, you understand why it is being conducted and why you have been invited to take part, and you appreciate exactly how you will be involved.
Even after agreeing to take part in a trial, you can still withdraw at any stage if you change your mind. Your decision will not affect the doctor’s attitude towards you. If you choose not to take part or you withdraw from a trial, you will then receive the best standard treatment.
At the Royal Bournemouth Hospital all clinical trials are discussed and explained initially by your doctor. You will then meet a Research Nurse Specialist who will answer any queries you may have and give you written information on the trial and a contact number for further advice and support.
You are not expected to make an immediate decision and it is important that you give yourself time to read and fully understand the written information and have time to discuss this with the professionals caring for you and your family. It is also important to note that your doctor may want to discuss other studies with you which are not clinical controlled trials. Some studies are set up by research councils to look into patient experiences and simply involve completing questionnaires or giving samples of blood to try and identify any possible genetic link with particular cancers.
Nursing on the ward and in day care, Radiographers in radiotherapy Community Oncology Nurses and/or Macmillan Nurses as well as your own Doctor and District Nurses, who will be kept informed of your care and treatment.