Clinical Trials Help Improve the Lives of Mesothelioma Patients
We would not be where we are in treating cancer without clinical trials. They help find new treatments for all types of cancer that can save lives or at least improve or extend them. Evidence proves that these clinical trials have improved cancer treatment since there has been a 31 percent decrease of overall cancer deaths between the years 1991 and 2018. New trials allow doctors to find what drug and treatment therapies work so they can use the treatments to help patients with hard to treat and sometimes incurable cancers.
Clinical trials are studies performed on people that usually consist of four parts. Drugs require phase I, II, and III trials to be performed to see if they can be approved for use. A phase I trial is done on usually healthy people (20 to 80 participants) to determine safety, see if there are side effects, and to find the right dosage. A phase II trial is done on 100 to 300 people and is performed to see if a treatment or drug is effective for a specific disease. They also look at the safety of a specific drug.
A phase III trial looks at safety as well, but it also looks at different doses and combines the drug with other drugs. This trial can have up to around 3,000 people. The FDA will approve the drug if it finds that the trial results are positive. Phase IV trials occur after a treatment is approved so this phase looks at effectiveness and safety in a larger, more diverse population. Side effects that can occur much later in a study can be monitored in a larger population over a longer period, so researchers can get a better idea of what a drug or therapy does to a person.
Mesothelioma is a rare and hard to treat cancer. The best option for mesothelioma patients is clinical trials because they can utilize unapproved therapies that have the potential to improve or extend the lives of patients. Since there is still no cure for mesothelioma, clinical trials offer hope that a new treatment or drug regimen can be developed to cure the disease. Without previous clinical trials, patients with all types of mesothelioma would be living shorter lives. If you would like to see an existing list of clinical trials for mesothelioma, you can go to our clinical trials page here.
If you were diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer after exposure to asbestos, you could be entitled to compensation. Contact us by calling 412-471-3980 or by filling out our contact form and one of our attorneys or staff members will get back to you as soon as possible to review your case.
