Considering a Clinical Trial? Here’s What You Need to Know
When, how, and why to enroll
Alex Trebek, the beloved host of Jeopardy!, has been fighting a very public battle with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer since mid-2018. For a while, it appeared that his cancer was in “near remission.” But it returned late in 2019, and in an ABC News interview Trebek said, “We may try a new protocol, a different chemo, or something in the trial stage that is not chemotherapy… I don’t mind experimenting. I’ve got nothing to lose, so let’s go for it.”
The best time to consider a clinical trial — for cancer or any other medical condition — is immediately after your initial diagnosis, since many clinical trials require patients to be “treatment naive.”
While it’s highly likely that Trebek has been receiving the best of care and the latest, most effective proven treatments, his statement reveals a common misconception: that experimental treatments in the form of a clinical trial are only reserved for hopeless cases after all conventional treatments have failed.
