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Will I get better treatment if I join a trial?

Not necessarily. There is no guarantee that your treatment will be better. The whole point of the trial is to find out how good the new treatment is, but doctors will not try out new treatments in clinical trials unless they believe they will be as good or better than the standard treatment.

Remember that in a phase III study you may not even get the new treatment being tested. A Phase III study is a 'randomised trial'. Some participants in it need to have the standard treatment so that researchers can compare the new and the standard treatments. You will not be able to choose which treatment you get. This is done at random, often by computer.

 

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