Should my child participate in a clinical trial?
The treatment team may ask if you want your child to take part in a clinical trial. A clinical trial is a study that tests new ways of helping cancer patients. A clinical trial is only done when doctors believe that the new treatment being studied may help more children survive or has less side effects than the standard treatment that is currently used. In the United States the majority of children diagnosed with cancer are entered into a clinical trial. Participation in these studies may offer the best chance of survival and is strongly recommended for most young cancer patients. In the United States most of these trials are performed by the Children's Oncology Group (COG).
These are some of the questions doctors are trying to answer with clinical trials:
- Is the treatment helpful?
- How does this new type of treatment work?
- Does it work better than other treatments already available?
- What side effects doest the treatment cause?
- Are the side effects greater or less then the currently accepted or standard treatment?
- Do the benefits outweigh the side effects?
- In which patients is the treatment most likely to be helpful?
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