Why we need cancer trials

Cancer trials offer hope.

While new and better treatments are being developed every year, we still don’t know all the answers. For example, we cannot prevent, diagnose, and treat all cancers.

Almost every family in Ireland has experienced cancer. Around 20,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in Ireland each year.

Cancer trials deliver three main benefits:

  •  They take us closer to finding treatments that stop people dying from cancer.
  •  They enable patients to get access to new and novel treatments which would not be available to them otherwise.
  •  They save the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) millions in drug costs, e.g. in 2016 an estimated 6 million euro was saved in cancer drug costs.

Cancer trials are at the heart of the global search for these answers. Every treatment has at some stage been the subject of a cancer trial.

Cancer trials help doctors and scientists advance ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer that are safe and effective.

98% of all cancer treating specialists in Ireland are members of Cancer Trials Ireland.