Abstract
Randomised clinical trials are essential for the objective evaluation of different treatment strategies in cancer. However, in the field of oncology, very few of the eligible patients are entered into trials, and most treatments have only been tested on a small percentage of patients. For doctors, a major deterrent to participating in trials is the lack of resources--particularly time, but often also the local facilities. This report suggests that patients themselves are willing to take part in clinical research, and are attracted by being treated by a doctor with a specialist interest in the disease and encouraged by the possibility that their progress will be monitored closely. With the recent NHS changes, it is timely for the Department of Health and other national health departments to consider carefully what can be done to ensure that no new treatments are adopted without effective evaluation. This will require departments of health to identify and implement ways to facilitate accrual of appropriate numbers of patients onto research protocols (whether non-randomised phase I or phase II studies or large, multicentre phase III trials) over short time periods.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 24 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $10.79 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Slevin, M., Mossman, J., Bowling, A. et al. Volunteers or victims: patients' views of randomised cancer clinical trials. Br J Cancer 71, 1270–1274 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1995.245
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1995.245
This article is cited by
-
The Importance of Social Engagement in the Development of an HIV Cure: A Systematic Review of Stakeholder Perspectives
AIDS and Behavior (2023)
-
The effects of releasing early results from ongoing clinical trials
Nature Communications (2021)
-
“We’re checking them out”: Indigenous and non-Indigenous research participants’ accounts of deciding to be involved in research
International Journal for Equity in Health (2016)
-
Maternal participant experience in a South African birth cohort study enrolling healthy pregnant women and their infants
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine (2016)
-
Knowledge and attitudes regarding medical research studies among patients with breast cancer and gynecological diseases
BMC Cancer (2015)