Clinical Research

How does participating in clinical research benefit our American veterans?

Patients with chronic conditions will often experience ‘treatment fatigue’ where they are looking for easier alternatives to their current treatment. Clinical trials may offer patients the opportunity to possibly:

(1) reduce the number of pills per day;
(2) move from injections to pills;
(3) use medications with reduced side effects; or
(4) provide a more predictable and acceptable patient outcome.

While one of the goals of clinical research is to generate data for future FDA approvals, patients, in this case veterans, often receive immediate benefits through their participation in ongoing clinical trials.

Those veterans enrolled in clinical trials are monitored, not only by their primary care team, but also by both the trial study coordinators and the trial sponsor. So even those patients that might be receiving a placebo during the trial are still receiving additional care and monitoring. In addition, some clinical trial protocols are structured so that patients are receiving the trial treatment in conjunction with the current standard of care. So in essence, they would be receiving the standard of care PLUS treatment.