They are carried out in all areas of medicine, not just in cancer and not just to test treatment. For example, a clinical trial might be used to compare different ways of diagnosing an illness. Or it might test techniques for preventing a particular cancer. At the present time about one in 200 cancer patients take part in clinical trials. If more patients were involved, cancer research would be able to move forward more quickly.
Trials are more common with some cancers than with others.
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