Why Participate in a Clinical Trial?

Clinical trials lead to advances in patient care. Clinical trials are critical for research into treatments for cancer and other chronic diseases. Clinical trials are the final step in a long and thorough research process that tests both the safety and the effectiveness of new therapies that begins in the laboratory and may include testing on animals.  Clinical trials are essential to learning more about different diseases and how to prevent or cure disease. Many of today’s most-effective medicines and treatments wouldn’t be available without having gone through the clinical trial process.

 The more people who participate in clinical trials, the faster important research questions can be answered that will lead to better treatment and prevention options for diseases.  We will never know the true effectiveness of a way to prevent or treat a disease unless more people are involved in clinical trials.

Participants in clinical trials can play a more active role in their own health care, gain access to new research treatments before they are widely available, and help others by contributing to medical research.