Clinical Trials

A clinical trial is one of the final stages of the arduous cancer research process.  Studies are conducted with cancer patients to determine whether a new approach to cancer prevention, diagnosis or treatment is safe and effective.

Clinical trials are used to help doctors and pharmaceutical companies find ways to improve a patient’s health and cancer care.

Types of Clinical Trials

Prevention Trials
Prevention trials are conducted on healthy people that do not have cancer.  For instance, a prevention trial may be designed to provide doctors with a method to test vitamins and supplements that they believe may lower the risk of a certain type of cancer.   Prevention trials may also be used to stop cancer from recurring.

Screening Trials
These trials involve conducting tests on people who do not have any symptoms of cancer. The goal is to find better diagnostic tools for early detection.   Another goal of screening trials is to determine whether finding cancer before it causes symptoms decreases the mortality rate from cancer.

Treatment Trials
These trials are conducted with patients that currently have cancer.  They are designed to test treatments such as new cancer drugs. Treatment trials are also used to evaluate standard treatments.

Diagnostic Trials
Diagnostic trials typically include people with signs or symptoms of cancer.  The results of these trials determine which tests or procedures could be used to diagnose cancer more accurately.

Quality of Life Trials
Conducted on patients suffering from the effects of cancer or its treatment, these trials are used to explore ways to improve comfort and quality of life for cancer patients.

MESOTHELIOMA CLINICAL TRIAL RESOURCES

If you are one of the people diagnosed with mesothelioma each year, clinical trials may offer the best available treatment as well as the opportunity to receive new, potentially more effective therapies. The following information regarding clinical trials is provided to help you locate resources for new mesothelioma treatments. Please contact the individual treatment centers for information about participation.

http://www.cancer.gov - National Institute of Health listing of 6,000-plus clinical trials now accepting participants.

http://www.Cancertrialshelp.org - An organization that aims to improve the quality of life and survival rates of cancer patients by increasing participation in cancer clinical trials through the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups.

http://www.centerwatch.com – The global source for news, directories, proprietary market research, and analysis for clinical trials professionals and patients.

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov – NIH’s global resource for clinical trials, ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world.

http://www.dana-farber.org/res/clinical/trials/default.html  – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Massachusetts-based center lists clinical trials at Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center that are currently accepting new patients.

http://cancer.duke.edu/ctrials – Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center lists clinical trials through Duke that are open for cancer patients.

http://www.lillytrials.com/initiated/tas/initiated_onco.html  – Eli Lilly and Company clinical trials help determine the safety and efficacy of various test medications with the intent of learning more about treatment options, disease states, diagnostics and other associated issues that contribute to the health and well being of patients.

http://www.fhcrc.org/patient/treatment/trials/index.php  – Clinical trials at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington.

http://www.moffitt.org/trials – Clinical trials offered through H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute of South Florida as well as collaborating sites.

http://www.hci.utah.edu/research/clinicalTrials.jsp  – Huntsman Cancer Institute combines advances in cancer research with cancer treatment through clinical trials.

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/518.cfm  – A continually updated listing of key clinical trials at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center that are currently enrolling patients.

http://www.oncolink.com/treatment/matching.cfm – Cancer Clinical Trial Matching & Referral Service in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center and EmergingMed.com.

http://www.roswellpark.org/Patient_Care/What_Is_a_Clinical_Trial/ClinicalTrialsOnlineSearch  – Clinical trials from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute.

http://cancercenter.stanford.edu/clinicaltrials – Stanford clinician scientists are engaged in a wide variety of clinical trials investigating new approaches to preventing and treating conditions and diseases. These trials are done in close collaboration with scientists and physicians from many areas of expertise across Stanford University.

http://cancer.ucsf.edu/trials/intro.php  – Clinical trials offered through the University of California, San Francisco’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

http://www.cancer.med.umich.edu/research/clinical_trials.shtml  – The University of Michigan's Comprehensive Cancer Center offers a wide spectrum of innovative clinical trials. Each study is carefully designed to answer a particular scientific question that is intended to improve our knowledge about cancer.

http://www.mdanderson.org/patients_public/clinical_trials/ - The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center list of clinical trials that are currently recruiting patients.