Am I a good candidate for a clinical trial?

Generally speaking, all clinical trials will have certain restrictions, often including age, biological gender, treatment history, condition, or other medical factors. These factors are in place to ensure that the clinical trial has controlled inputs. As a clinical trial reaches later phases, you may be able to qualify for a trial that you were previously restricted from, as the trial will include testing across a broader range of population factors.

For the most part, medical researcher are seeking to study a single treatment for a single condition. For individuals, some conditions won't impact the outcome of a specific clinical trial and are considered an acceptable variation within the clinical trial participants. As an example, if you have mild asthma that is kept easily controlled with a simple inhaler, it may not cause a problem with a clinical trial for a new type of knee surgery, because the trial isn't focused on the lungs. If you want to participate in a lung cancer trial, on the other hand, your asthma may present too much variation for the researchers to account for.

How close do I need to be to the clinical trial?

Many modern clinical trials take advantage of network communications to work with trial subjects in community clinics, doctors' offices, through in-home care, or completely virtually. These decentralized clinical trials are often used in somewhat later phases of a trial, when it has been determined that a medication should not have any dramatic negative side effects on the trial subjects.

Your ability to participate virtually or locally may depend on the specific clinical trial.

How do I find and enroll in a clinical trial?

To find a clinical trial that fits your needs, there are a number of options: you can ask your physician; check online at this website or others that link patients with particular conditions to researchers actively seeking clinical trial participants. ClinicalTrials.gov provides a listing of ongoing trials. From that point, once you contact the clinical trial, the researchers will do a thorough investigation of your health, medications, and background to ensure that you're a good fit for that particular clinical trial's goals.

Is it expensive to participate in a clinical trial?

Most clinical trials have no cost to participate. In fact, many will provide you with financial compensation for your time as well as any travel expenses that you may have because of the trial. In most cases, your treatment, medications, and doctor visits for the trial are free.

For the vast majority of clinical trials, you don't even need to have health insurance, though you will need to fit certain health minimums to qualify for the trial. You will want to retain your health insurance for non-trial healthcare purposes, such as outside doctor's appointments, surgeries, accidents, and similar areas of concern. Clinical trials are not designed to replace your healthcare needs, but rather focus specifically on the disease and treatment being studied.

Will a clinical trial cure my condition?

Clinical trials are designed to test new treatments and diagnostic techniques for particular conditions, including procedures, medications, and diagnostic tools. Though some clinical trials do have positive health outcomes, leading to new mainstream treatments, others do not, and simply create another explored avenue that does not work. It is important not to have high expectations of any clinical trial, for multiple reasons. Clinical trials test the safety and efficacy of a treatment above all else, with adjustments made in later phases to improve results.