Clinical Trials For Cancer
There are three types of clinical trials for treatment of cancer. These are prevention trial, control trial and treatment trial. The details of each type are listed below. |
Prevention Trial - The motive behind this trial is to prevent cancer by giving medicines, alternative medicines including lifestyle alterations. The volunteers are subjected to preventive trials to check how it affects them in future. They are being monitored regularly for several years to ascertain if the treatments provided helped in prevention of cancer.
Control Trial - These trials are conducted to minimize the side effects of treatment given for cancer or distressing cancer symptoms. The volunteers of these trials either get the drug used in the treatment or a placebo.
Treatment Trials - This trial entails introduction of new drugs, latest combination of drugs or new schedule and timetables of treatment. The volunteers receive treatment in the form of either conventional therapy or additional therapy in combination.
The cancer patient has to qualify first for the type of trial that he has to undergo. The qualification process depends on the kind of cancer the patient has, the risk factors for the cancer to recur and few other factors. Usually, cancer patients are placed in either of the two groups of conventional therapy or experimental therapy. An organization that sponsors for the research is liable to bear the costs involved in treatment. Cancer trials are long drawn researches which may last for 6 months to several years.
There are many benefits of cancer trials. It is quite usual for any cancer patient to be concerned for the reason that the treatment involves a huge costs and it is generally not covered by medical insurance. Patients who volunteer for such trials do not have to pay anything and yet are in receipt of treatment.
More Articles :
|