Clinical trials are designed to help us find out how to give a new treatment safely and effectively to people. Each patient who participates in a clinical trial provides information on the effectiveness and risks of the new treatment. Advances in medicine and science are the result of new ideas and approaches developed through research. New cancer treatments must prove to be safe and effective in scientific studies with a certain number of patients before they can be made available to all patients. Many standard treatments were first shown to be effective in clinical trials.
Clinical trials show researchers which therapies are more effective than others.
This is the best way to identify an effective new treatment. New therapies are designed to take advantage of what has worked in the past and to improve on this base. You may be interested in participating in a trial. You should learn as much as you can about the trial before you make up your mind. There are many kinds of clinical trials.