Cancer Information: The Basics 
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| clinical trials | New anti-cancer treatments are first evaluated in the laboratory. When a new treatment is initially tested in humans, it is referred to as a Phase I Trial. The purpose is to determine what an appropriate dose is and generally whether or not it has any specific anti-cancer activity. When an appropriate dose is determined, then the treatment is evaluated by a Phase II Trial, in which the object is to determine if the treatment has any effect against a variety of different types of cancer. If it does, then a Phase III Trial is done in which this new treatment is tested against what is currently thought to be the best standard treatment. Usually, Phase III trials are randomized, which means that the treatment you receive, new/experimental vs. standard, is determined by chance;an example would be a flip of the coin, although the techniques uses are more sophisticated and often use computers to determine who gets which treatment. This prevents any bias from influencing the outcome when the results are evaluated. All of the current major chemotherapy drugs have gone through this type of testing. Not all experimental trials involve chemotherapy; some may involved surgical procedures or radiation therapy or other diagnostic or treatment options. |
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