Valuable data that helps to improve health and cancer care.
SSM conducts numerous clinical trials for a wide variety of cancer treatments.
Clinical trials are research studies in which people help doctors find ways to improve health and cancer care. Each study tries to answer scientific questions and find better ways to prevent, diagnose or treat cancer. A clinical trial is one of the final stages of a long and careful cancer research process. Studies are done with cancer patients to find out whether promising approaches to cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are safe and effective.
Clinical trials help to gather important information concerning many treatment and patient care issues. Types of clinical trials include:
- Treatment trials: Test new treatments (like a new cancer drug, new approaches to surgery or radiation therapy, new combinations of treatments, or new methods such as gene therapy).
- Prevention trials: Test new approaches, such as medicines, vitamins, minerals or other supplements that doctors believe may lower the risk of a certain type of cancer. These trials look for the best way to prevent cancer in people who have never had cancer, or to prevent cancer from coming back or recurring in people who have already had cancer.
- Screening trials: Test methods used to find cancer, especially in its early stages.
- Quality of life trials: Explore ways to improve comfort and quality of life for cancer patients.