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

Why participate in a clinical trial?

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 general 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.