The New York Times
As a medical student and later during my residency, I trained for some time in a medical center known for its research and clinical trials. Every week, patients with rare diseases and cancers that had not responded to standard therapy arrived from all over the country, eager to try something new, even if the efficacy of the treatments had not yet been proven.
But placed in the context of early-phase clinical cancer trials, unrealistic optimism results in a perfect ethical storm. “You have oncology, a field of medicine that is strongly evidence-based and research-intensive, and you have a population of patients who are experiencing an immediate threat to their lives,” said Dr. Neal J. Meropol, a researcher who has done extensive work on the ethics of early-phase cancer trials and chief of the division of hematology and oncology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
“Patients almost invariably take part in early-phase clinical trials because they believe they will personally benefit.”
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