Cancer Clinical Trial Myths Debunked with Dr. Craig Cole!

The myths of clinical trials – So, one of the biggest myths of clinical trials is that people are guinea pigs. People are not guinea pigs in clinical trials. The chemical trials are safer now than ever and the drugs used in clinical trials are better understood than ever.

So, these aren’t chemotherapy clinical trials anymore. These are biologic agents that have gone through and been developed specifically for cancer. So, the risks and the ‘guinea-pigness’ of clinical trials really doesn’t exist anymore. So, people aren’t guinea pigs in clinical trials anymore.

From our partner

People 16+ years old struggling with lupus: Find out if the PHOENYCS FLY Study may be for you. Study-related care provided at no cost.

One of the other myths is that people will receive a placebo or they won’t receive therapy at all. In cancer medicine, you can’t give a placebo for clinical trials and cancer. So, placebos don’t exist in clinical trials and cancer. It would be immoral to not give somebody treatment for cancer.

So, when people are randomized, when they receive one treatment or the other, they usually receive the best available therapy compared to the best available therapy plus something new. And so, at the very least, people received the best therapy that we have to offer as the alternative regimen compared to the experimental one. So, the randomizations are safe and they don’t involve placebos.

And the third thing is that people feel that they’re not eligible for clinical trials; that clinical trials are only for people who are in the worst state of disease and that’s no longer true. Clinical trials now expand the entire spectrum of disease; from before people have the disease, to first diagnosis, to after their first therapy, on relapse, and sometimes observational or laboratory studies. Clinical trials span the spectrum and so, the likelihood is that most people have a clinical trial available to them.

From our partner

Join a Study, Help Future Patients. Researchers are studying a potential treatment for HER2+ metastatic breast cancer. Find out if you may qualify

BlackDoctor.org’s “Ask the Expert” series brings the nation’s leading health experts directly to viewers. In this video, Dr. Craig Cole, Hematologist and Assistant Professor at University of Michigan, discusses multiple myeloma.