Finding a Clinical Trial
To find a clinical trial, a good first step is to talk with your doctor. Because new clinical trials are created constantly, many people also look in other places to find research studies that they may be interested in joining.
The organizations below offer free, searchable listings of cancer clinical trials. (Please note that if you select one of these websites, you will leave Cancer.Net.) Other organizations that offer such search engines include individual medical/cancer centers, drug manufacturing companies, and patient advocacy organizations [2].
National Cancer Institute (NCI) Clinical Trials [3]: The NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the federal agency that provides funding for most U.S. cancer clinical trials. This comprehensive site provides information on both open and closed cancer clinical trials that are funded by the government, as well as many sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, medical centers, and some international organizations.
ClinicalTrials.gov [4]: This database of publicly and privately supported clinical trials is maintained by the National Library of Medicine at the NIH. It provides information about more than 100,000 studies involving patients that are researching a wide variety of disease and conditions, including cancer, in all 50 states and more than 150 countries.
CenterWatch [5]: This is a publishing and information services company that offers a list of institutional review board (IRB)-approved clinical trials.
EmergingMed Navigator [6]: EmergingMed offers a phone and Internet-based service that identifies clinical trial options which match a patient's specific diagnosis, stage and treatment history. Clinical trial specialists provide telephone support upon request to help connect eligible patients with IRB-approved study sites that are enrolling new participants.
TrialCheck [7]: TrialCheck is an online search engine where people can find tailored information about cancer clinical trials that are enrolling patients at hospitals, cancer centers, and oncology practices in the U.S. and internationally.
WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform Search Portal [8]: The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinates health matters within the United Nations. This database allows people to search clinical trial registration information from many countries' registries.
Disease-specific listings
Below are free search engines that providing clinical trials listings for a specific type of cancer.
BreastCancerTrials.org [9]: A not-for-profit online service that helps users to find breast cancer-specific clinical trials that might be right for them. The site offers study summaries, a way for users to share their online health history with research sites, and an alert service that notifies users of recently added clinical trials. BreastCancerTrials.org includes studies sponsored by NCI, public research foundations, and the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry.
More Information
ASCO Expert Corner: What Makes a Quality Clinical Trials Site [11]