Experimental Cancer Drugs

admin — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Clinical Trials For New Cancer Drugs

The easiest way to get access to a promising experimental, unapproved drug for cancer treatment is by participating in a clinical trial being conducted on that drug.

There are several sources of information about ongoing clinical trials and how to qualify for them. Depending on how far you want to delve into technical details, much information about individual drugs is also available.

The first starting place is to understand all you can about the disease you want to treat. The exact type and stage of the cancer, and what treatments have already been applied? Clinical trials are designed to scientifically test the new drug, not necessarily to provide ideal treatment for every individual patient in the study. Every clinical trial has a set of specific requirements for participation, and each prospective patient must satisfy a list of criteria to be allowed to enter the study. These are called inclusion and exclusion criteria. An individual patient’s medical records must be matched to these lists to determine if the patient is a good candidate for participation in the trial.

Test Results Posted In National Database

All trials testing effectiveness of a new drug for cancer treatment are required by law to be listed in a national database: www.clinicaltrials.gov. This database does not include most earlier-stage clinical trials (called Phase I and Phase II trials) because those are not technically evaluating effectiveness. In any case, earlier stage trials may be of interest. Information about earlier stage trials can be found on the website of the National Cancer Institute.

If searching clinical trial information does not provide the information you seek, other sources include medical journal articles and cancer patient advocacy organizations. The National Library of Medicine’s database, which includes millions of articles, can be searched at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.

Marti Nelson Cancer Foundation

The Marti Nelson Cancer Foundation is one patient advocacy organization that specializes in experimental drugs for cancer is. Their website, www.CancerActionNow.org, is a good source of information on new drugs. It provides links to other sources of information about experimental and conventional cancer treatment.

Mainstream news reports are not always great sources of reliable information because the articles are usually vague about details. Before you get excited about test results reported in mainstream media, it is essential that you do research into the scientific and medical details behind the report.

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Experimental Cancer Drugs

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