A clinical trial is a type of medical research that focuses on the effects that treatments have on patients. These carefully planned scientific studies help doctors select the safest, most effective approaches to cancer treatment.

The basic question asked in any clinical trial is: “Is this treatment better and safer than the treatment(s) currently used to treat this disease?” New medical breakthroughs, which improve the lives of many people, emerge because they have been tested in clinical trials and found to be helpful.

Many forms of treatment are tested in clinical trials. New chemotherapy drugs, surgical and radiation techniques, vaccines, and biological therapies are a few of the treatments currently being studied in clinical trials as possible treatments for all types of mesothelioma. Clinical trials often involve adding a new treatment after standard treatment has been given.

Before any chemotherapy treatment is tested with patients it is studied first in tissue culture in the laboratory. If it is determined to be potentially effective, it is next tested with animals. Finally, it is tested with people.