Clinical Trials FAQs

Clinical trials are research studies in which patients help physicians and scientists find ways to improve health and cancer care. Each study tries to answer scientific questions and to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, or treat cancer. UM/Sylvester conducts a wide range of clinical trials and currently has more than 150 underway.

Why Are There Clinical Trials?
A clinical trial is one of the final stages of a long and careful cancer research process. Studies are done with cancer patients to find out whether promising approaches to cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are safe and effective.

What Are The Different Types Of Clinical Trials?
Prevention trials—test new approaches, such as medicines, vitamins, minerals, or other supplements that doctors believe may lower the risk of a certain type of cancer. These trials look for the best way to prevent cancer in people who have never had cancer, or to prevent cancer from coming back or a new cancer occurring in people who have already had cancer.

Screening trials—test the best way to find or locate cancer, especially in its early stages.

Diagnosis—test new methods for diagnosing cancer.

Treatment trials—test new treatments (like a new cancer drug, new approaches to surgery or radiation therapy, new combinations of treatments, or new methods such as gene therapy).

Coping with cancer trials (also called quality of life or supportive care trials)—explore ways to improve comfort and quality of life for cancer patients.

What Are The Phases Of Clinical Trials?
Most clinical research that involves the testing of a new drug progresses in an orderly series of steps, called phases. This allows physicians and scientists to ask and answer questions in a way that results in reliable information about the drug and protects the patients. Clinical trials are usually classified into one of four phases:

Phase I Trials—phase I trials evaluate how a new drug can be provided safely including proper dosing and potential side effects. In addition, this phase assesses the best way to administer treatment (by mouth, injected into the blood, or injected into the muscle). A phase I trial usually enrolls only a small number of patients or healthy volunteers, sometimes as few as a dozen.

Phase II Trials—a phase II trial continues to test the safety of the drug, and begins to evaluate how well the new drug works. Usually, only a small number of patients participate in phase II trials, focused on a particular type of cancer.

Phase III Trials—phase III test a new drug, a new combination of drugs, or a new surgical procedure in comparison to the current standard. A participant will be assigned to the standard group or the new group at random (called randomization). Phase III trials often enroll large numbers of patients and may be conducted at many doctors’ offices, clinics, and cancer centers nationwide.

Phase IV Trials—phase IV trials include the continuing evaluation that takes place after FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval, when the drug is already on the market and available for general use (post-marketing surveillance).

What Is UM/Sylvester's Clinical Trial Matching Service?
UM/Sylvester’s Clinical Trial Matching Service—which is powered by EmergingMed—is a fast, simple, confidential, and free resource providing cancer patients, families, and caregivers information about clinical trial treatment options currently available in South Florida and throughout the state and nation.

To use the Clinical Trial Matching Service, you may browse our list of open trials for your type of cancer, or you may complete a profile and see if it matches any of the clinical trials currently active in South Florida. If you do not find a match in South Florida, you can see matches from the rest of the country. Be assured your personal information is password protected and under your control at all times.

Click here to search for clinical trials by diagnosis or to participate in UM/Sylvester’s Clinical Trial Matching Service or call 1-866-574-5124 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (except holidays).

For general information about clinical trials at UM/Sylvester, call 305-243-1000,
1-800-545-2292, or visit our Online Contact Form.

To read more about the FCCTC, click here.