Transcript of
How do clinical trials work?
A clinical trial is the best way we have
of finding out which treatment works for a particular condition.
It's the most fair test, if you like, of a treatment.
In a clinical trial, we can compare one treatment against another
in the most fair way possible,
and then find out which one works the best.
Anybody can take part in a clinical trial.
It does depend, though,
on whether somebody is already running a clinical trial
on the treatment you might have,
and whether you fit their recruitment categories.
People are building huge databases
that collect all the activity happening in the clinical trials community
all around the world,
to produce a searchable database so that people can look for trials.
So there are clear advantages to participating in a clinical trial.
Sometimes if it's a trial of a new treatment that isn't widely available,
you may have access to a treatment
which you wouldn't otherwise have been able to get.
But also it's worth being clear,
that there are some disadvantages of participating in a clinical trial
and most of those revolve around inconvenience.
And that cuts both ways.
So for example if somebody is running a clinical trial,
they may want to know a lot more about your health,
so they'll have to do many more blood tests.
Or maybe you'll have to come to the clinic
and be examined or checked up on more often than you might have been.
You could regard that as an intrusion and a disadvantage, or as an advantage.
One of the fears people have about clinical trials
is that maybe they'll be given some new and very elaborate experimental drug.
Firstly, that's very unusual.
Secondly, before you start the trial,
people will explain to you very carefully and clearly
which treatments you may be getting.
One worry people can have about participating in a clinical trial
is that they might be given a treatment
which subsequently turns out not to have been the best of the two options.
The problem is, that at the time you're running a trial,
the time when you're choosing which treatment is best,
you don't know which is the best treatment.
And that's quite common in medicine. What happens in a clinical trial is,
you're still being given one of two treatments chosen at random,
as you might be if your doctor was treating you outside a clinical trial,
but without any clear evidence.
But at least in a clinical trial we're developing new understanding
of which treatments work best.
In a clinical trial, people give you an enormous amount of information.
But at the beginning, when you are considering participating in the trial,
there are a few questions I'd be interested in asking.
Firstly I'd want to know the point of this trial.
What's the uncertainty that you're trying to resolve?
Secondly, I'd want to know
what we already know about the two treatments I might be getting.
Thirdly, and this is very important,
will I be told the results of the trial when it's finished?
And lastly, I'd want to know will the results of this trial
definitely be published and put into the public domain?
I would always participate in a clinical trial if I was invited,
because firstly I'd feel I have nothing to lose
if I don't know which of the two treatments available to me is the best.
Secondly, I might benefit. I might get a better treatment.
But lastly, I'd feel I was contributing to the greater sum of our knowledge,
helping us to understand for everybody in the future
which treatment is the best.
The reality is, the only reason why we're effective as doctors
at treating any disease
is because people have already participated in clinical trials.
They are really the only way that we know if a treatment works or not.
So people who participate in those trials
make an enormous contribution
not just to the knowledge of doctors and academics,
but more importantly, an enormous contribution to everybody's health.