Hospitals that participate in clinical trials appear to provide better care for patients with heart attacks or other acute heart events, and to have lower death rates than hospitals that do not participate in clinical trials....Read More


Knowing Doctor's Financial Interests Doesn't Deter Clinical Trial Participants

According to researchers, a patient's willingness to participate in a clinical trial may be unaffected by the disclosure of a researcher's financial interests in the study, unless the amount of money a researcher stands to earn depends on the results of the trial....Read More


Researchers Examine Cancer Trials; Studies Starting Up at Several Major Centers

A new study of group-randomized cancer trials shows that fewer than half used appropriate statistical methods to analyze the results; another study found that about one-fourth to one-half of new cancer treatments that reach assessment in Phase III randomized clinical trials are eventually proven successful; European researchers say that more teenagers and young adults need to be recruited, and more children randomized, into clinical trials of new treatments for cancer; Roswell Park Cancer Institute has opened one of only a few clinical research centers in the U.S. to focus exclusively on cancer; and a Virginia university is opening a Phase I pancreatic cancer study in cooperation with Israeli researchers....Read More


FDA Deadlines May Compromise Drug Safety by Rushing Approval

Many medications are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the brink of congressionally mandated deadlines, and those drugs are more likely to face later regulatory intervention than those approved with greater deliberation, researchers at Harvard University have found....Read More