Episode 029: What You Must Know About Clinical Trials Before Starting Treatment
Aug 11, 2018•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
The way I see it, a clinical trial is a bridge between research and the patient, this is an opportunity to access the latest treatment out there to get the best outcome possible, which is what it’s all about, right? So, in order to find out more about how it all fits together, I’m talking to Ian Davis who is the chair of ANZUP, a group of medical experts who look after clinical trials for below-the-belt cancers. Here is what we cover in this conversation:
The Guinea Pig myth
Are clinical trials safe?
When is placebo given (if at all)
Clinical trials as decision support tools
Why you should ask about one now
and much, much more!
Links
ANZUP Trials Group
ANZUP ClinTrial Refer app
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
Episode 007: How To Use Your Inner Resources To Better Deal With Cancer
Full Transcript
Joe: Ian, it’s such a pleasure to meet you and to talk to you about clinical trials. I’m really excited about it because to me, really, clinical trials are the front line to fighting cancer. It’s making a huge difference for folks out there. Unfortunately, most people don’t realise how important this is and the critical role it plays in fighting cancer. What’s your perspective on that?
Ian: Yes, thanks, Joe, for the chance to talk to you and to talk about clinical trials. It’s very important. Every time you go to your doctor to get your blood pressure medication, or the medicine for your cholesterol, or even if you’re going to go and buy some vitamins from the chemist and you think that’s going to help you, you do that because you got some information about it. You know that, here is a treatment that might help you in your condition or might not. You’ve got information about how safe it is. When you should use it and when you shouldn’t use it. You might not be aware you got that information but it’s there. That exists because clinical trials have been done in all of those situations.
Every time you go to the doctor and you have cancer and you’re having a discussion about what sort of treatment might be appropriate for you, the advice that’s being given to you is being given in the context that a clinical trial has been done and it’s given you evidence. Now, we hope that that’s the case. The reality is, for many of the clinical situations we find ourselves in, the evidence is not there, we’re extrapolating from what we know or from the basic science, or from our understanding of the condition but there might not be a clinical trial to guide us in decision-making.
In that situation, it becomes a whole lot harder to make recommendations for people. That’s why we need to continue to push this agenda of doing more clinical trials, doing them better, so that we can get more information, help people, and support them in their decision-making.
Joe: Absolutely. Yes, that’s fantastic, Ian. There are so many myths and misconceptions about it, I think it’s really important to be really clear about that. A lot of them is that clinical trials are administered as a last resort, is that true?
Ian: No, it’s absolutely not true. Sometimes it’s appropriate to think about taking part in a clinical trial as a very first treatment. We do a lot of those clinical trials here, at our hospital and through ANZUP Cancer Trials Group, where we do clinical trials for genitourinary cancers. Many of the trials we’re doing are sometimes the first treatment that someone might have had from their disease. Definitely not a last resort. People should understand that if they’re going on a clinical trial, they’ll always get the best possible treatment.
Joe: Yes, absolutely. I think that implies that it’s an experiment, this has been thoroughly researched and it builds on this body of knowledge that already exists out there.
Ian: That’s right.
