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Health & Medicine
The anatomy of a clinical trial Written by: Anna Waters Media contact: Yvonne Taunton
A clinical trial is a special kind of research approach that physicians and scientists use to study the effects of a new treatment in order to compare it to an existing treatment. If the new treatment proves to be safer or more effective than the current standard treatment, it can become the new
Clinical trials serve as the bridge between research and patient
standard of care for
care. Learn more about clinical trials, who can participate and why
treating people with
they play a vital role in cancer research.
cancer. Clinical trials represent the culmination of a long, rigorous process by which physicians and researchers translate promising scientific findings from the laboratory into medical practice so those findings can become new treatments for a disease. As researchers ask questions about how cancers develop in the human body, they can use the results of their research to develop potential treatments for cancer that can challenge the bodily processes upon which cancers depend. These potential treatments are then tested in clinical trials where they are offered to cancer patients. Clinical trials are a vital