Clinical trials

Promising new cancer drugs are developed in the laboratory and translated into better treatments for cancer patients using clinical trials.

Trials are an important final step in a long process to prove the effectiveness and safety of cancer treatments. Trial treatments may involve radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery, molecular therapy, and complementary therapies.

Why participate in a clinical trial?

Many people with cancer are now living longer, with a better quality of life, due to clinical trials. Participants in clinical trials:

  • can play a more active role in their own health care
  • gain access to new research treatments before they're widely available to the public
  • help others by contributing to medical research.

Clinical trials are the best way of testing a new treatment, or seeing whether a particular treatment works better than another.

All clinical trials must be approved by a Victorian Human Research Ethics Committee before recruitment can begin. This approval process provides assurance to participants that their rights and any research benefits and risks have been carefully considered.

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