Cancer Diary: Clinical Trials
(photo from Wikipedia)
When traditional treatments are not working, cancer patients may want to participate in clinical trials. We did not have the time to arrange for something like that -- Carl was diagnosed very late and endured a very short time. When the cancer became quite out of hand after just three rounds of chemotherapy, the oncologist offered to "look for" a clinical trial, if we wanted one. Of course, that did not work out because Carl died just three weeks later.
However, the suggestion got us thinking. What would be involved in being in a clinical trial and in finding one? What would be the pros and cons? With subsequent research, which we would not have had time to do on our own, given the speed of Carl's demise, I learned some interesting things.
On the positive side, clinical trials may provide access to treatments and drugs not yet in (wide) use and will almost certainly provide personalized attention. On the negative side, there is no guarantee that the trail treatments will be better or even as good as the more traditional treatments. (Note on the positive side: clinical trials do not have a control group -- there is no chance that a participant will get a placebo.)
It should be noted that clinical trials are not available everywhere, not even in every large metropolis. They also may not be available for a particular cancer. Carl's oncologist did not know of any clinical trials for cancer of unknown primary, but was ready to search -- chances are he may have found none because I have found none to date (the nature of cancer of unknown primary and the speed with which it destroys a body is such that it is understandable that a clinical trial would be hard to set up).
Most oncologists will know of clinical trials or be able to track them down, but if yours is having difficulty, here are some sources for finding clinical trials:
It is important to note that clinical trials take time -- both finding them, getting into them at an appropriate juncture, and the duration. With aggressive cancers, the pragmatism of becoming involved in a clinical trial may need to be balanced against other options.
Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl Leaver, MSI Press graphic arts director and designer, who died of Cancer of Unknown Primary August 16, 2021, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog carries an informative, cancer-related story -- and is open to guest posts: Cancer Diary.
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