Research – clinical trials

• See current lung cancer trials

Research into new ways of treating cancer is going on all the time.

When a new treatment is being developed, it goes through various stages of research. To begin with it will be looked at in the laboratory, and sometimes tested on cancer cells in a test tube. If the treatment seems as though it might be useful in treating cancer, it is then given to patients in research studies (clinical trials). As a first step, these aim to find a safe dose, see what side effects the therapy may cause, and identify which cancers it might be used to treat. These early studies are known as phase 1 trials.

If these suggest that the new treatment may be both safe and effective, further trials are done to find out whether it is better than existing treatments, or has extra benefit when given together with these treatments. These trials (phases 2 and 3) compare the new treatment to the current best standard treatments.

Clinical trials are very necessary to work out how useful any possible new treatment might be, and see whether they are better than existing treatments. Because this must be done carefully and thoroughly, it usually takes some years from the time when a new treatment is first discovered (often with a lot of publicity in the papers and on TV) until the time when its true value is established.

You may be asked to take part in a trial. There can be many benefits to taking part. You will be helping to improve knowledge about cancer and the development of new treatments and you will be carefully monitored during and after the study.

It is important to bear in mind that some treatments that look promising at first are often later found not to be as good as existing treatments, or to have side effects that outweigh any benefits.

The process of clinical trials is described in more detail in CancerBACUP’s section on cancer research trials.