Cancer trials will save the Exchequer €6.5m this year – while supporting over 230 jobs.
As well as the economic benefit, new research for Cancer Trials Ireland shows that trials can add years of life for trial participants.
Ahead of Clinical Trials Day tomorrow, cancer patients are being urged to ‘Just Ask’ their doctor about taking part in a trial.
Alan and Sinead Pearson were asked if their four-year-old would take part in a clinical trial.
In the past 20 years, 15,000 cancer patients have taken part in 350 cancer trials, testing new drugs, treatments and tests.
But was Alan concerned about the associated risks?
“In the frame of reference of your child being diagnosed with cancer, especially a very aggressive cancer, the worries associated with the trial are small and I don’t mean to trivilaise it, they just are smaller.
“You are looking for the best possible options, and the fact that the best possible option for us was part of a clinical trial overrode the fact that it was a clinical trial.
Cancer trials save the HSE millions in drug costs, while supporting hundreds of jobs.
Consultant Oncologist Bryan Hennessy, who’s clinical lead with Cancer Trials Ireland says they also give patients access to the latest drugs, like Herceptin when it was trialled;”Through Cancer trials Ireland, women in Ireland got access to that drug several years before it was eventually approved on foot of the clinical trials that had been done.
“It’s the opportunity to avail of new and more effective treatment because several types of cancer are still not curable, our treatments are limited in what they can do and we are all the time looking for new treatment.”
Sinead Pearson was asked how Cliodhna is doing on the trial.
“She has days when she is a bit lower, maybe post treatment or something, but she keeps bouncing back and in the very very beginning I was afraid that she would lose her little personality because she is such a bundle of energy.
“But no, she keeps coming back and she is always a can of beans so we are seeing positive results from each stage of the treatment, she has a long way to go but so far so good.”
