6 Of Your Most Pressing Questions About Clinical Trials Answered

When it comes to clinical trials there are no off-limits questions. We’re here to help spread the knowledge so you can make better, more educated decisions about your health. Thankfully, you have a lot of questions making our job easier by guiding us in the direction of your concerns.

We have prepared a long list of questions you had for us at one point or another and it seems like most of your concerns revolve around safety.

But before you read any further, we suggest you check out this article we published some time ago about clinical trials myths.

You should know the first basic truth of clinical trials – participants are not guinea pigs. A clinical trial is never a shot in the dark even if it turns out unsuccessful. Which leads us to your most pressing question…

How can I be sure it’s safe?

There are different types of clinical trials and some of them only aim at observation, so these tend to lean on the no-side-effects side.

However, you’re most probably referring to treatment-oriented clinical trials. When it comes to treatment, the truth of the matter is this: the drug, device or procedure in development has already been thoroughly studied in a lab, then tested on synthetic tissue or animals before it even entered phase I.

The therapies being studied in clinical trials on humans can have side effects like any other treatment. It’s the severity of these side effects compared to the outcome of the treatment that determines whether the new drug (or device, or procedure) is better than what’s already available.

It’s a simple formula: less side effects for a similar therapeutic outcome means that the new therapy is successful. The same side effects for a better outcome is also a significant improvement.

A clinical trial is never risk-free. But it takes years to evaluate potential short- and long-term side effects, so by the time a new therapy reaches phase II or III researchers have already seen enough promise in it.

What are side effects?

Side effects are occurrences beyond or in addition to the desired therapeutic effect of the treatment.

Examples of side effects are nausea, vertigo, fatigue, brain fog and any other physiological change that impairs daily function. When side effects significantly decrease our quality of life they’re called severe side effects and a new medication can be prescribed to regulate them.

How can I find out about clinical trials?

That’s our favorite question so far because FindMeCure was created precisely to build a bridge between patients and clinical trials, making the process of finding the right trial for you easier, faster and more intuitive.

However, there are more ways to find and get into a clinical trial that’s right for you. Back in the day when access to information wasn’t just one click away, your doctor would evaluate your treatment options and recommend a trial if they thought it would benefit you. And if they knew of one conducted near you.

Your doctor may still be a valuable source of information, providing you with more inside knowledge and answering your most immediate questions. But finding a clinical trial on your own now can take as little as doing a search on our website.

Can I be moved to the other arm of the trial?

To answer this question, first we need to explain what an ‘arm’ means in clinical trials. New treatments are often tested against placebo (when they can’t be compared to any existing treatment) or an already established treatment (when the hypothesis is that they’re an improvement on what’s already available).

To test the new treatment then, participants are randomly divided into different groups in a process called ‘randomization’.

Sometimes the medical professionals who administer the treatment and monitor participants’ reactions to it are not themselves aware whether they administer the treatment in development, an established therapy or a placebo.

This is done in order to avoid bias on the part of the research team and it’s called ‘blinding’.

So, the short answer to this question is ‘no’. The ‘gold standard’ of clinical trials is a randomized double-blind trial in which neither patients, not researchers know which arm is the control group and which one receives the treatment.

The long answer is: it’s all described in the clinical trial protocol and you can ask question about any and everything before enrollment. It’s a possibility that you may be allocated to another arm. But the main goal of clinical trials is bettering methods of treatment in a scientifically sound way and this often means upholding the ‘gold standard’ of conducting a trial.

Do I have to pay for my participation?

We already covered your cost-related questions in a post published not so long ago. Again, there is a short and a long answer.

The short answer is ‘no’. Clinical trials are free, enrollment is free, searching for a trial is free. The long answer, however, is that not all costs are covered. While the treatment itself is paid for by the sponsor and all trial-related check-ups are also covered for you, in most cases there are travel and possibly accommodation costs for you to take care of.

Will I ever be cured?

Although we’re called FindMeCure and we believe that medical advancements will eventually find a cure for most diseases that currently plague us, there is no guarantee you will be cured.

Clinical trials are a huge source of hope for us and that’s the reason we promote them and help people expand their knowledge about research and the options they have before them. But clinical trials are not a magical solution and they’re certainly not a guarantee for recovery.

Medical research aims at ending or at the very least finding a relief for suffering but such an outcome takes years of trials that sometimes turn out to be a let-down for a single break-through to occur.

We want you to stay hopeful and we believe in taking chances when it comes to improving the quality of your life. But we also urge you to be realistic and approach clinical trials (and your treatment in general) with the understanding that developing new treatments is a slow process that has its risks and ultimately recovery is never guaranteed.

We hope we cleared some misconceptions about clinical trials and provided you with a better understanding of how medical research works. We stay tuned to your questions and concerns and you can look forward to more articles on the ins and outs of clinical trials in the future.

Meanwhile you can check out our database for trials that might interest you. No one can promise you a recovery but your health is worth taking a chance.