Clinical Trial Benefits and Risks

Pros and Cons to Cancer Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are research studies conducted with people who volunteer to take part. Each study answers scientific questions and tries to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat a disease. People who take part in cancer clinical trials have an opportunity to contribute to knowledge of, and progress against, cancer. They also receive up-to-date care from experts.

Clinical Trial Benefits

• Participants have access to promising new treatment methods that are often not available outside the clinical trial setting.
  
  
• The approach being studied may be more effective than the standard approach.
  
  
• Participants receive regular and careful medical attention from a research team that includes doctors and other health professionals.
  
  
• Participants may be the first to benefit from the new method under study.
  
  
• Results from the study may help others in the future.

Clinical Trial Risks

• New drugs or procedures under study are not always better than the standard care to which they are being compared.
  
  
• New treatments may have side effects or risks that doctors do not expect or that are worse than standard care.
  
  
• Participants in randomized trials will not be able to choose the approach they receive.
  
  
• Health insurance and managed care providers may not cover all patient care costs in a study.
  
  
• Participants may be required to make more visits to the doctor than they would if they were not in the clinical trial.
  
  
  
  

  Source:

  National Institute of Health.