What is a Clinical Trial?

• Allows doctors and scientists to learn something new about how to treat patients
• Designed to answer a specific health question
• May test a new drug, device or treatment option
• Determines a new way to prevent, diagnose or treat a disease or illness
• Often is also called a Research or Clinical Study

What are Some of the Possible Benefits?

• You may receive a new treatment that is not available to any other patients
• The new treatment may be safer or more effective than current options
• Doctors and Staff monitor study patients very carefully and stay with the patient at every single step of the process
• You may be among the first to benefit from a new treatment option

What do I Need to do to Participate in a Clinical Trial?

• You may be required to give a little more of your time and attention than you would to a non-research treatment
• This may include extra trips to the study site, keeping diaries, more treatments, hospital stays or even dealing with complex dosing of medicines
• All of this will be explained to you before you make your decision to join the study.

Why are Clinical Trials Important?

The FDA requires that all medications and medical devices must go through clinical trials before being put on the market. If a new treatment proves effective and safe in a study, it may become a new standard treatment. The medicines that people take every day are all based on the results of clinical trials. Without people volunteering to participate in clinical trials, new drugs and devices would never be approved for use.