ABC'S OF PREVENTION TRIALS

When faced with a decision about participating in a cancer trial, whether a clinical trial or a prevention trial, the most important thing you can do is educate yourself about what exactly they are, how they are conducted, and how they effect the patients participating in the trial.

There are some important differences between clinical and prevention trials. First, and most obvious, prevention trials participants are not current cancer patients, though they may have once had cancer. Therefore, the purpose of the prevention trial is in it’s name: prevention, whereas clinical trials may focus more on the treatment of current cancer patients.

Unlike clinical trials, prevention trials fall into two categories: action studies and agent studies. Action studies focus on how lifestyle choices, like exercise and smoking cessation can prevent cancer. In an agent prevention trial, medication, vitamins , minerals or other supplements may be administered to test if they might lower the risk of certain types of cancer.

Though the purpose of prevention trials are quite different from that of clinical, many of the guidelines that govern these two types of studies are similar. We encourage you to visit the ABC’S OF CLINICIAL TRIALS section of this website, where a wealth of information exists about trials in general.