What is a clinical trial or research study?

Clinical Trials or research studies usually aim to find out if a new treatment or procedure works more effectively than the currently used treatment or the safety profile of the treatment including any side effects, or whether it helps you feel better or improve the quality of your life.

New treatments have to be thoroughly tested in pre-clinical studies (for example laboratories) before they are form clinical trials for participants.

There are many types of cancer clinical trials and studies such as observational, cohort of randomised control trials.  If you would like more information on the types of clinical trials please visit the CRUK webpage.

We run a large number of studies in a variety of cancer types; please visit our Clinical trials open at BHOC page for an extensive list organised by tumour type and more information on each study.