Research
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• Increase survival
• Improve quality of life
Advances in the treatment for cutaneous lymphoma depend on clinical
trials of new therapies or new therapy combinations. Different types of
cancer clinical trials are designed to develop and test new and better ways
to:
• Diagnose and treat cancer in people
• Prevent or relieve treatment side effects
• Help prevent a return of cancer
• Improve comfort and quality of life for people with cancer
Clinical trials are expensive. Organizations such as the National Cancer
Institute and pharmaceutical companies usually fund cancer clinical trials.
Phases of a Clinical Trial
Phase I: Phase I studies are designed to assess the best dose, route of
administration, frequency of treatment and overall safety of the drug in a
small number of patients.
Phase II: Once the therapy dose is determined and shown to be safe in
a phase I trial, it is then ready to be tested in a phase II study. Phase II
studies aim to better define the effectiveness of the drug in a larger group
of patients. These studies might be used to generate preliminary data
on a drug or to confirm data to obtain FDA approval. Phase II studies
also investigate whether a therapy approved for one type of disease is an
effective treatment for another.
Phase III: Phase III trials are performed to determine whether the
treatments developed in phase I and II studies are better than what is
currently considered the “standard of care” for a specific disease. Phase
III studies often require a large number of patients. Once a patient elects
to enroll in a phase III study, he or she is assigned to one of two groups
in a process called “randomization.” In randomization, a computer
assigns the treatment the patient is to receive. One group receives the
current standard therapy and the other group receives the treatment that
is being proposed as a replacement. It is important to remember that
this randomization process is done so that each treatment arm will have
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