Joining a Clinical Trial
Finding the most suitable clinical trials for you and joining a trial takes time and effort. It can be challenging, especially for women with ovarian cancer. This section looks at the experiences of women living with ovarian cancer, emphasising the challenges they face in learning about and joining clinical trials. We want to help women understand their options when it comes to clinical trials.
This section contains information on the following:
How to find a suitable Clinical Trial
Why join a Clinical Trial?
Where do I find current trials in progress, and find updates on them?
If there was one place where all this information was clear and trustworthy, I think it would help so many of us. It's hard to find answers when you don’t know where to look.
Barriers to accessing Clinical Trials
Women say that they were never told about trials, or if they were, it wasn’t clear or easy to understand their options. The main barriers women face include:
Where you live (demographics)
Practical issues
Eligibility
Finding information
Understanding information
Diagnosis and treatment
Limited trial options in certain types of ovarian cancer
Communication with healthcare providers
Support and resources
For detailed information on these barriers to accessing Clinical Trials, visit our page here.
How to find a suitable Clinical Trial?
There are a few ways you can find a clinical trial suitable for you. These include:
Asking your specialist oncology doctor
Searching clinical trial databases
Advocating for yourself
Contacting Ovarian Cancer Australia
Why join a Clinical Trial?
Women join clinical trials for ovarian cancer for several reasons. They are often not just seeking treatment for themselves. Based on responses from women who took part in the Ovarian Cancer Australia study, some of the main motivations were:
To help future people with ovarian cancer
Hope for personal and future health gains
Desire for new options
To help future people with ovarian cancer
For many, a clinical trial isn’t about their own possible treatment benefits but is about helping others. Many women see joining a trial as a way to contribute to research, help other women and support better treatment options for the future.
I want to help others, to make sure future women with ovarian cancer have better options. If I can help in any way, I will.
These women are motivated by a deep sense of selflessness, even if they may not be expecting a cure for their own cancer. They hope that their participation could lead to better treatments or even a cure for others down the line.
I think often we have to be very sick before we can go into a trial, so it may not benefit us, but it will help people in the future, so I’m willing to go into trials.
Hoping to help improve progress for other women who have ovarian cancer is a very good feeling for many women.
I’m very happy to help anybody else.
Hope for personal and future health gains
Women also join trials with the hope that it could improve their own health. Joining a clinical trial:
may be a way to access new treatments that might extend or improve your quality of life or that are not yet available through standard treatment
may not benefit you immediately, but it may mean some improvement in your health and prognosis in the future.
Clinical trials represent the innate altruistic nature of humanity and not only provide hope for the patients taking part in clinical research, but also for the people that will follow in their footsteps on their own disease journey. Without the selfless contribution of those that came before them, that journey would be that little bit tougher and a little more daunting.
Desire for new options
Sometimes women with ovarian cancer face the situation where standard treatment is no longer working for them. Seeking another type of treatment through a clinical trial offers some women a chance to try a something that may give them a better outcome. This is especially true for those whose cancer is very difficult to treat.
Why join a Clinical Trial? Summarised
Women join clinical trials hoping for improvement of their own cancer.
They also want to help others and contribute to research.
Involvement in a trial can also impact the outcomes for women in the future.
How are trials organised?
Clinical trials are carefully organised studies that test new treatments, tests, procedures or ways of treating diseases like ovarian cancer. Getting a trial up and running can be a complex and long process. Before any patient is given a new treatment or test it has to go through a series of steps to ensure that the trial is ethical and as safe as possible.
Head to our page here for more detail on how Clinical Trials are organised.
Clinical Trial results
Clinical trial results for ovarian cancer can take a long time to become available to the public. This is because trials need to collect and analyse a lot of data before any recommendations can safely be made.
Research teams monitor participants over a long period of time to see how a new treatment works in comparison to the current standard treatment.
You can find more information on Clinical Trial results, by visiting our page here
How do I find Clinical Trials in progress?
To learn more about finding Clinical Trials in progress, please refer to our page here
