Cancer Current Topics in Cancer

Know Your Options: Cancer Patients Unaware of Clinical Trials

More than half of cancer patients do not know about the clinical trial options available to them, say researchers. And a large percentage of patients who are aware of clinical trials are deterred from participating in them because of misperceptions and fear.

Clinical trials are the only way a new drug can be approved for use in patients. They are a series of experiments performed in humans that help researchers and drug makers better understand how a particular treatment works, if it is useful, and if there are any side effects that may be associated with it.

But clinical trials are only a small part of the drug development process. Well before a new drug is given to patients, they are tested in the lab, in both isolated cells and animals. Only after these tests show that the treatment is safe, will researchers proceed to human studies. According to the American Cancer Society, 1,000 potential drugs are tested before one is found that can be studied in humans.

Making matters more difficult, once a drug can be tested in humans, there is often a shortage of willing participants. Only certain people can be eligible to participate in any given trial, but more importantly, many people who would qualify don’t even know these trials are going on.

“Clinical trials represent the single, most important step in the process of brining new, improved cancer therapies to patients,” said Dr. Roy S. Herbst, survey creator from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “And the fact that many patients do not enroll in them because they to not feel they have enough information, or even worse, don’t know about them, is very troubling.”

The survey, conducted by the Lung Cancer Alliance, included 600 patients and oncologists and showed that more than 80 percent were unaware of any clinical trials that they may have qualified for at the time of their treatment. Meanwhile, most oncologists believed they adequately informed patients when a clinical trial was an option, showing a large disconnect.

Further, many patients expressed serious concerns regarded participating in a clinical trials. Thirty percent of patients said they would be concerned about receiving the placebo instead of the treatment in a controlled study, while 40 percent of patients were concerned about potential side effects. Other barriers to participation included the inconvenient location of the trial and the costs associated with the treatment if it was not covered by insurance.

Oncologists believe that one of the biggest problems in finding out about clinical trials is that there is no one resource to learn about trials occurring in a particular area. The best option is www.clinicaltrials.gov, which is a database of some clinical trials currently underway. But keeping up with new clinical trials can be a very time consuming process.

“The dilemma can only be solved by providing cancer patients with consumer-friendly, unbiased information,” said Laurie Fenton, president of the Lung Cancer Alliance, who mentioned that any information given to patients should “debunk common myths and detail the benefits of participation, ranging from medical to financial.”

In fact, 69 percent of patients surveyed said they would participate in a clinical trial if they still require treatment and a new drug was being developed.

If you are interesting in learning more about available clinical trials, be sure to speak with your doctor about your options and ask about the pros and cons of any study before you sign up.