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What are clinical trials?
Here you will find a brief explanation of what clinical
trials are and why we need them. Click on a link below to
jump to a topic.
Clinical trials
are research studies involving patients, which compare a new or
different type of treatment with the best treatment currently
available (if there is one). Some clinical trials look at
possible ways to prevent illnesses, for example by testing new
vaccines in healthy people.
No matter how promising a new drug or treatment may appear
during tests in a laboratory, it must go through clinical
trials before its benefits and risks can really be known.
Trials aim to find out if treatments to be used in health
care:
- Are safe
- Have side
effects
- Work better than the treatment used currently
- Help people feel better
It is now widely agreed that a properly run clinical trial is
the best way to assess whether a treatment is, or is not, safe and
effective.
The MRC Clinical Trials Unit carries out clinical trials in
health care. We use trials to look at the best ways to:
- Prevent illnesses, such as HIV/AIDS
- Diagnose illnesses – for example by using scans and blood
tests
- Treat illnesses – for example by testing the effectiveness and
safety of new drugs or combinations of drugs
- Help people control their symptoms
Click
here to search the list of trials the MRC
Clinical Trials Unit is involved with.
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Clinical trials
are the most reliable and best way of testing a new treatment, or
of seeing whether one treatment works better than another. A
new treatment is not always better, and can sometimes be worse than
existing treatments. Trials are therefore really important
when we need to know whether one treatment is safer and more
effective than another.
We need clinical trials to improve treatment and care for
patients now and in the future.
Many of the treatments now commonly used in the NHS have been
tested through clinical trials. For example, in cancer care,
trials have been used to try out new treatments – radiotherapy,
chemotherapy, surgery, and complementary therapies. Trials
have also been used to find out the best ways of using these
treatments. This has meant that many people with cancer,
HIV/AIDS and many other illnesses now live longer and have a better
quality of life.
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Last Update Date : 6/13/2011
