Cancer Institute– A national cancer institute
designated cancer center

Clinical Trials: Making progress in the field of cancer

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Understanding Cancer Clinical Trials

Progressing Health and Medicine with Cancer Clinical Trials

What are clinical trials and why are they important?

Clinical trials (also called clinical studies) are research studies conducted with people who volunteer to take part in a study to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat a disease.

Each study answers questions and tries to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat a disease. People who take part in cancer clinical trials have an opportunity to contribute to the knowledge of, and progress against, cancer. They also receive innovative care from experts.

If more people enroll in trials, information about possible beneficial treatments, supportive care, prevention, screening, and diagnostic procedures can be discovered more quickly. A lot of progress has been made in the cancer field due to valuable information from clinical trials. Many cancer treatments we have today are based on what we learned from clinical trials.

Why do more ethnic minorities need to participate?

To make research studies more representative of various populations, all groups including ethnic minorities are needed to participate.

With more ethnic minority participation in studies, we can obtain helpful information to better understand minority health. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is working with partner organizations to increase awareness and knowledge about clinical trials using the Clinical Trials Education Series (CTES).

NCI Cancer Information Service (CIS): Trained information specialists can answer your questions about cancer and provide print and electronic NCI publications. Service is available in English and Spanish on Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

Call toll free at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) or 1-800-332-8615 (TTY for the hearing and speech impaired). Callers also have the option of listening to recorded information about cancer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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