Clinical Trial Resources

Clinical Trial Background

A Patient's Experience With Several Clinical Trials by Ian Liston
Clinical Trials - Should we Participate? A contemporary analysis of the clinical trial process by W. Aishman.
How to Read a Paper (important for reading phase I, II, III trial results.)
Median Explained -- read Jay Gould's "The Median Isn't the Message."
National Cancer Institute – Cancer Trials; Finding Clinical Trials; Understanding Clinical Trials and other Clinical Trial Resources.
Israel Barken's "Why Join a Trial" essay: http://www.prostatepointers.org/barken/study.html
Onconurse Factsheets (http://onconurse.com/factsheets/trials_resources.html)
Understanding Prognosis and Cancer Statistics -- National Cancer Institute.

Compassionate Use for Access to Unapproved Drugs. This link will take you to an articlethat 1st appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of Cure Today. It describes the FDA's Early Access Program and single patient use. You need to know the criteria, understand the law, do a lot of leg work and enroll your doctor in this quest.
Another resource for compassionate use is located on the .American Cancer Society Compassionate Use webpage;
The US National Cancer Institute also covers this topic - "Access to Investigation Drugs - Questions and Answers."
US FDA has, "Access to Unapproved Drugs." It is not an easy process.
An editorial written by Jerome Yates, M.D. entitled Food and Drug Administration, Partner in Drug Development contains many useful insights into the process.

Updated 20 January 2008 Howard Hansen

Updated 1 August 2008 H. Hansen