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Clinical trials
Most Indian patients never learn a trial exists, because nobody is looking.
What it is
A clinical trial is a structured study of a treatment under an approved protocol, with ethics oversight, defined eligibility and monitored safety. For some patients it is the route to a medicine they could not otherwise access.
Trial matching is part of the board report here, drawn from a maintained registry, not something that depends on whether the doctor in front of you happens to know of one.
When it is used
- At diagnosis, where a trial exists for your situation
- At progression, when the standard options change
- Where cost puts a licensed treatment out of reach and a trial provides access
How the decision is made
- Whether you are genuinely eligible, on disease, prior treatment and organ function, not whether a trial exists in general.
- What the trial actually involves: extra visits, extra tests, travel, and what happens if you withdraw.
- What is provided free and what is not. This is frequently misunderstood.
At the trial site, which may or may not be a partner. Where KPCIRC is a site, the trial runs under our own ethics and governance framework.
Who does what
What we handle, and what happens elsewhere
KPCIRC handles
- Trial matching inside the board report
- Eligibility consultation, waived where you enrol at a trial we are a site for
- Help reading the protocol and the consent document before you sign it
- An honest view of whether it is worth the disruption for you
Performed and billed elsewhere
- The trial itself, run by its sponsor and site
- A legitimate trial has a registration number, an ethics approval and a written informed consent document you take home and read. If any of those three is missing, it is not a trial.
- You may leave a trial at any time without losing your ordinary care.
Questions to ask your own doctor
Take these with you. They work whether or not you are treated here.
- What is the registration number, and where is it registered?
- What is being tested against what?
- What do I pay for, and what is provided?
- How many extra visits, and how far?
- What happens to my treatment if I withdraw?
Support that goes with it
Where this is used
Cancers this commonly forms part of
Lung & thoracic cancer
Non-small cell and small cell lung cancer, mesothelioma, thymic tumours
Breast cancer
Including hormone-receptor positive, HER2-positive and triple-negative disease
Colorectal cancer
Colon and rectal cancer, bowel cancer
Leukaemia
Acute and chronic leukaemias. ALL, AML, CLL, CML
Lymphoma
Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Sarcoma & bone tumours
Soft-tissue sarcoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, GIST
Cancer of unknown primary
CUP, cancer found without an identified site of origin
Not sure this is the right option for you?
That is exactly what a second opinion is for. Bring what you have, we will tell you what is missing and what the alternatives actually are, in writing.