Why You Should Consider a Prostate Cancer Clinical Trial
Why You Should Consider a Prostate Cancer Clinical Trial from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Dr. Alicia Morgans, a hematology and oncology specialist, explains the importance of prostate cancer patients of different geographic locations participating in clinical trials and the role trials plays in clinical care.
Dr. Alicia Morgans is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
See more from The Pro-Active Prostate Cancer Patient Toolkit
Related Resources
Are You Prepared for Your Prostate Cancer Appointment? Expert Tips |
|
Prostate Cancer Treatment Decisions: Which Path is Best for YOU? |
Transcript:
Dr. Alicia Morgans:
From my perspective, I think any time in a prostate cancer journey is a great time to think about a clinical trial if that trial is available where you live or is available at a place where you would be willing to travel. We have so much to learn about prostate cancer, about how to continue to provide options to patients, and about how to support men as they go through their treatment. And the only way we can learn those things is if men participate in clinical trials. So importantly, also, we need to have men of diverse backgrounds of diverse races from geographic diversity.
Because if we only study certain people from the city of Chicago, for example, where I live, we’ll really only know what we know about those men. And we won’t necessarily know if we can apply our findings to men who live in Atlanta and are Black. It’s going to be the kind of thing where we have the data, but we don’t necessarily know if it’s going to be the right data for you.
So, the more men of color, the more men from different geographic locations that we can encourage to participate in clinical trials, the more we learn for every patient and the more we are able to take care of the specific and unique needs of you as an individual, which is really a critical part of what we do and why we do what we do. So, participating in clinical trials, no matter who you are, if you’re able, and if you’re willing, is really a great service to you to get, hopefully, better outcomes for you, but also a great service to your community of men with prostate cancer.
