Clinical cancer trials are vital for scientific progress – but there are many unanswered questions for patients | Ranjana Srivastava

Oncologists are taught to ask themselves at every juncture, “Is there a clinical trial for my patient?” Awareness campaigns and advocacy groups have prompted more patients to ask the same question.

Trials are an opportunity for patients to benefit from promising treatments that are not yet standard care.

But excluding “regular” people from trials does us a huge disservice because once a drug is approved, it is prescribed to just such patients.

Drug companies should be required to study quality-of-life measures as a condition of approval.

Data on ethnic differences in treatment tolerability is not merely desirable but essential.

30% of the population in Australia was born overseas, data is essential to study.

Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar.