Who Can Participate

Disease Information & Support // Managing Your Cancer // Clinical Trials // Who Can Participate

Your doctor may speak to you about being treated in a clinical trial. If he or she doesn't discuss the possibility of a clinical trial with you and you'd like to know more about joining one as a treatment option, you can bring up the topic yourself. You don't have to wait until your disease is in an advanced state to participate in a clinical trial. A trial can be designed to test new treatment that improves response rates or improves the quality of life for patients with newly diagnosed or limited disease.

Clinical trials are appropriate for people of different types and ages, depending on the purpose and phase of the trial. Your eligibility for any given clinical trial depends on many factors, especially:

your disease type
your age, gender and race
the stage of your disease
other treatments you've used
whether you have any other illnesses or medical conditions

Clinical trials cover a wide range of research and are designed with specific requirements that determine who is eligible to participate. For instance, researchers may be specifically looking for patients who:

have already tried standard treatment
have not had any previous treatment
have had standard treatment and are able to wait for a period before switching to a study treatment
do not have co-existing medical conditions such as liver or kidney disease