Clinical Trials: First or Last Line of Treatment?
Clinical trials are often regarded as a last resort for treatment, reserved for those patients who have exhausted all other options.
However, the cancer care experts at the St. Elizabeth Clinical Research Institute are committed to shattering this myth and educating cancer patients and their families about the positives of clinical trials. The key message: not only are clinical trials available to patients at any point in their treatment plan, the St. Elizabeth team now encourages patients to consider clinical trials as a first line of treatment.
Clinical Trials: An Edge on Cancer Treatment
At St. Elizabeth, patients are offered clinical trials as a standard of care treatment. This means that patients in clinical trials receive exactly the same treatment as patients not enrolled in a clinical trial – with an additional component of the trial medication that is being evaluated.
Clinical trial patients typically receive additional medical care, as national clinical trials have testing protocols that must be followed by the cancer care team. Participating in clinical trials also furthers cancer research, helping scientists and doctors one day hopefully find a cure for every type of cancer.
“Enrolling in a clinical trial at the time you are diagnosed with cancer can give you the newest treatment options in addition to the standard of care,” says Amy Bolton, Nurse Manager at the St. Elizabeth Clinical Research Institute. “We are getting new drugs, new science, new innovation and new devices at St. Elizabeth.”
St. Elizabeth: Offering Clinical Trials to Tristate Patients
St. Elizabeth proudly partners with a number of national clinical trial organizations, the Acru Network, UK Markey Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute, as well as cancer research organizations like Pharmatek. Our patients have access to some of the most advanced and promising clinical trials available.
St. Elizabeth has dedicated oncology clinical research nurses that work to research the best clinical trial options for each patient with cancer at St. Elizabeth. For more information or to see a list of clinical trials offered at St. Elizabeth, please visit the St. Elizabeth Clinical Research Institute.
