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A clinical trial is one of the final stages of a long and careful cancer research process. Studies are done with cancer patients to find out whether promising approaches to cancer prevention diagnosis and treatment are safe and effective.
Treatment trials test new approaches e.g. medicines, vitamins, minerals and other supplements that doctors believe may lower the risk of a certain type of cancer. These trials look for the best way to prevent cancer in patients who never had cancer, to prevent cancer from coming back or a new cancer from occurring in people who have already had cancer.
Most clinical research that involves the testing of a new drug progresses in an orderly series of steps called phases. This allows researchers to ask and answer questions in a way that result in reliable information about the drug and protects the patients. Clinical trials are usually classified into one of three phases:
- Phase I Trials: Theses first studies in people evaluate how a new drug should be given, (by mouth, injected into the blood, or injected into the muscle), how often and what dose is safe. A phase I trial usually enrolls only a small number of patients, sometimes as few as a dozen.
- Phase II Trials: A phase II trial continues to test the safety of the drug, and begins to evaluate how well the new drug works. Phase II studies usually focus on a particular type of cancer.
- Phase III Trials: These studies test a new drug, a new combination of drugs, or a new surgical procedure in comparison to the current standard (called randomization). Phase III trials often enroll numbers of people and may be conducted at many doctor’s offices, clinics and cancer centers nationwide.
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