Clinical trials Dr Rob Hicks Before they're approved for wider use, all new drugs and treatments must be tested on patients. If you're interested in taking part in a clinical trial, you should always consider the pros and cons.

In this article

The testing process

Be informed

When a new treatment becomes available, it brings new opportunities to help people. By this stage it has successfully completed the assault course of tests that all new treatments have to undergo before they can be prescribed.

Thousands of treatments never even get past the ideas stage. If they do, many work in theory but not in practice. Fewer still get through to the important stage where they're tested to see if they're effective and safe.

The amount of work involved in getting treatments to this point is enormous. It's no surprise that researchers are anxious and enthusiastic to recruit volunteers with whom they can test their treatments.

As a volunteer you should be fully informed of the risks involved.

When asked by your doctor whether you would be willing to take part in a clinical trial you should never feel under pressure to say yes.

You must be 100 per cent sure that you understand what you're doing and that the trial may have its risks as well as its benefits.

If you're at all unsure, don't be afraid to ask for more information, either from the company conducting the research or from another doctor who isn't involved in the trial.

This article was last medically reviewed by Dr Rob Hicks in February 2007.