What are the Benefits and Risks of Joining a Trial?

Possible benefits for volunteers:

• Play an active role in their health care.
• Gain access to research treatments before they are widely available.
• Help others by contributing to medical research.

Possible risks for volunteers:

• There may be unpleasant, serious, or even life-threatening side effects to experimental treatment.
• The experimental treatment may not be effective.
• The protocol may require more time and attention than a non-protocol treatment, including trips to the study site, and more treatments/procedures and lab tests, hospital stays, imaging studies and other requirements.