How do patients find out about clinical trials they are eligible for?

When should they consider participating in a clinical trial?

So great questions on

I am a clinical trials, so I'll say that upfront.

I'm a firm believer in clinical trials being the best way

to treat oncology patients whenever they're available.

There are definitely trials open in CLL

at every stage, so there are front line trials, there are relapsed trials.

So anytime a CLL patient is considering treatment,

I would encourage them to ask their oncologist

about the availability of a clinical trial.

There are websites that can be helpful.

So there's clinicaltrials.gov where if you put in and search for CLL,

you'll be able to pull up all the clinical trials

that are registered at clinicaltrials.gov, which is essentially

all of the clinical trials, because it's a requirement

by the government that that those trials are registered there.

So that's a really great resource.

And there are a bunch of organizations, much

like Health Tree, that can put patients together and have

message boards and the like

for sharing information about studies and their availability.

And so I would absolutely encourage patients to talk to their oncologist

when they're considering treatment either upfront or in their current setting

about clinical trials.

And if your oncologist doesn't have one open and that happens, absolutely.

There are lots of sites that don't currently have a trial

for that particular indication.

And then I would encourage them to think about,

you know, talking to their ecologist about

can they get a second opinion someplace that maybe has a clinical trial.

And I would really emphasize that anybody who's treating

oncologist is upset by the thought of them getting a second opinion.

That's that's a little bit of a warning sign.

Your doctor should very much be happy with you getting a second opinion.

The more brains that are thinking about your disease and the best treatment for it, the better.

And so I would it would be a bit of a red flag

for me if an oncologist said, I don't want you to get a second opinion.

And we generally are.

I can tell you I am personally never offended by it.

I always am happy to encourage a patient to get a second opinion,

especially if I don't have a clinical trial for their disease.

it's definitely something to talk to your doctor about actually,

at every stage of the disease course, because in CLL

we have clinical trials,

you know, that are for patients

who actually even before treatment, some of these supportive care measures

like prevention of infection, the immune system effects

that might be available to you, here at Memorial Sloan Kettering, for example,

we have clinical trials that are attempting to refine

and even improve the standard of care for the initial treatment.

And then in the relapsed setting, there are patients

who've had many treatments for their CLL, and we have

trials that are looking

at new drugs for CLL, really first in human trials first.

So for CLL, it really depends where you are in the disease course.

But a clinical trial could be appropriate for you,

you know, if available at really any stage.

And that's what we really do in our program here at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

And so I would say, you know, at any time, talk to your doctor.

clinicaltrials.gov has a listing of the clinical trials

and your doctor can discuss what the standard options for you are

outside of a clinical trial, which is always really important to know

and then see if there's a clinical trial available

no matter what really stage of the disease, you're up.