Clinical Trials

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New Treatments Through Clinical Trials

The Florida Hospital Cancer Institute (FHCI) is committed to exploring every avenue possible in treating your breast cancer. As such, we are heavily involved in clinical trials that may offer new hope in catching the disease earlier, controlling it effectively, and perhaps, eradicating it entirely.

During your treatment at the FHCI, your physician may discuss the possibility of participating in clinical trials for breast cancer. If you meet the eligibility criteria and decide you want to participate in a clinical trial, you will have access to promising new treatments and procedures that others may not benefit from for years to come. Of course, clinical trials aren’t for everyone and there are risks as well as benefits for participating in one. However, you can be assured that FHCI physicians adhere to the most rigorous guidelines when conducting clinical trials in breast cancer and they will cover every aspect of the trial with you before you begin.

Some of the breast cancer clinical trials conducted at the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute can last years. Many involve additional tests, but these are usually provided at no additional cost to you. Again, your doctor will go over everything with you before the breast cancer clinical trial begins and answer all of your questions and concerns.

The Benefits of Clinical Trials

Clinical trials aren’t for everyone, but if you are a good candidate for a clinical trial in breast cancer, you can help test the effectiveness of new generations of breast cancer drugs, advances in surgery or radiation therapies and new concepts in treatment. While there are never any guarantees, should a clinical trial for breast cancer prove effective, you’re the first one to benefit from it.

Other benefits of breast cancer clinical trials include:

• Access to state-of-the-art breast cancer treatments.
• Individualized care by a research nurse who is involved in all aspects of your clinical trial, from treatment and care to follow-up sessions with the trial physician.
• Contributing to discovering and refining more effective ways to prevent, detect and treat breast cancer.

The Florida Hospital Cancer Institute is proud of its legacy of being one of the most active clinical trial participants in the country. Many of our partners are household names, including the National Care Institute, Duke University Medical Center, the UCLA Community Oncology Research Network and many highly regarded pharmaceutical companies. In many cases, we are the only institution in the southern United States to conduct many of these clinical trials for breast cancer.

Current Clinical Trials

Following are links to current clinical trials related to breast cancers, including carcinoma in situ, invasive breast cancers and rarer health issues, such as Paget’s Disease. For more information about these trials, click on the respective link or contact our Breast Cancer Care Coordinator.