Multiple Myeloma Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are critically important to the development of new multiple myeloma treatments, and to helping doctors better understand the disease itself. Almost all cancer treatments available today resulted from research conducted in clinical trials.
For many people with multiple myeloma, participation in a clinical trial may be a good option for treatment. Some patients worry that participating in a clinical trial may mean that they receive only a placebo and no actual treatment. In fact, all patients in a clinical trial receive treatment. One set of patients receives the standard treatment and the other set of patients receives the new treatment.
Physicians and nurses who conduct clinical trials are always the most familiar with the latest research and treatments, and the trials often take place at larger research institutions.
“Why should a patient consider participating in a clinical trial?
“It’s the only way we know how to do things. Everything that we have figured out about myeloma is because patients participated beforehand in clinical trials. It’s a way to pay it forward,” says Nina Shah, MD, of the University of California San Francisco.
“But aside from that, there’s an experience that a patient can have on a clinical trial that is really unlike other experiences they may have. They will be given the opportunity to understand a lot about their disease that maybe they may not have understood before and they may have the opportunity to try a treatment that might be beneficial.
One of the other things that’s really important is that clinical trials are sort of a concierge service because you have to be monitored very closely.”
A 2-minute video from the Patient Empowerment Network