Cancer Clinical Trials Experimental Treatments & How They Can Help You By Robert Finn 1st Edition September 1999 1-56592-566-1, Order Number: 5661 226 pages, $14.95

Preface

This book is intended for anyone with a diagnosis of cancer or anyone helping such a person make medical decisions. Sometimes, the person with cancer is too wrapped up in pain, worry, and fear to be able to focus clearly on his or her medical options. It falls then to a family member or trusted friend, working in cooperation with medical professionals, to identify the decisions to be made and to present them clearly to the patient.

This book is not a guide to individual clinical trials. You won’t be getting highly specific advice of the type, “If you have cancer X, you should be participating in trial Y,” or “Forget about clinical trials on agent ZZ1234 because it doesn’t work.” There are many different kinds of cancer, and at any one time, there are about 1,500 different cancer clinical trials being conducted in the United States. Because new potential treatments are continually being developed, and older ones are either being approved for use or discarded, the clinical trials available to people with cancer will continually change. A guide to specific clinical trials would be out of date even before it could be published.

Nor does this book contain a case study of any one clinical trial. For an intimate look at the development of a single cancer therapy, read an outstanding book on Herceptin by NBC science correspondent Robert Bazell entitled Her-2: The Making of Herceptin, a Revolutionary Treatment for Breast Cancer (Random House, 1998).Instead, this book will give you the tools you need to find and evaluate clinical trials for your particular type of cancer at any time you need that information.

This book is organized so that you may either read it straight through or go directly to the chapter that contains subjects of interest.

Chapter 1, Overview of Clinical Trials, discusses cancer clinical trials in general terms, explains why too few people participate in clinical trials, and argues that anyone with cancer should at least consider clinical trials along with other treatment options.

Chapter 2, The Structure of Clinical Trials, introduces you to the three main phases of clinical trials. It describes how they’re conducted and the pluses and minuses of each phase. You’ll also learn about placebos, randomization, and blinded and open-label trials.

Chapter 3, Clinical Trial Ethics, shows you how the current clinical trial system evolved and how the ethical codes for clinical trials developed. You’ll learn about the rights and responsibilities of all the parties involved in clinical trials and where to complain if something goes wrong.

Chapter 4, How to Find Clinical Trials, shows you numerous ways of identifying clinical trials that might be useful for your medical condition.

Chapter 5, Special Types of Trials, describes the unique considerations involved in specialized types of clinical trials, including genetic trials, prevention trials, and trials of new diagnostic devices.

Chapter 6, Choosing Possible Trials, discusses general considerations in choosing a clinical trial and the special considerations involved in clinical trials for children and for people with advanced cancer.

Chapter 7, Evaluating a Clinical Trial, shows you how to make a decision about whether to participate in a specific clinical trial. You’ll find a thorough dissection of an informed consent form, and you’ll learn how to make sense of the trial’s highly technical protocol document. This chapter also includes a long list of questions to ask the people running the trial and concludes with a list of questions to ask yourself as you make the decision on whether to participate.

Chapter 8, Administration of Clinical Trials, shows you how clinical trials are organized, managed, and regulated.

Chapter 9, Financial Issues, describes the economic considerations involved in clinical trial participation. Among other things, you’ll learn how to find out if your insurance will cover clinical trials, and you’ll learn some strategies for dealing with the situation if it doesn’t.

Appendix A, Resources, collects in a single location an annotated list of resources related to clinical trials.

Appendix B, Critical Public Documents, presents the actual text of some of the most important documents regulating the conduct of clinical trials.

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