Clinical trials close to home

REGIONAL cancer patients can access phase one clinical trials in Ballarat.

Grampians Health are hosting oncology clinical trials organised by medical oncologist Dr Lizzie Lim and her colleagues.

Dr Lim has been working on cancer treatment for more than seven years and she specialises in oncology drug development and phase one trials.

Phase one trials mark the start of testing a new treatment for humans and they look at safety, side effects, best dose, and timing of a new treatment.

They are usually done on small groups of people and are a last option.

“They are the first in human trials, and so not all of them will make it to the next trial stage,” said Dr Lim.

“Some may do better than others, some we may find will not be as effective as we hoped, or some may have issues with side effects.”

Dr Lim said clinical trials are important to making progress with treatments.

“Phase one clinical trials are evidence-based, gold-standard in progressing research to improve the outcome of patients,” she said.

“Without them, we can’t have any progress and I believe they should be the standard of care for patients.”

Phase one of oncology drug development clinical trials are signal seeking, which means they are providing a basis for future trials.

Signal seeking helps prioritise future treatments.

“This is an essential step in drug development to get new drugs and promising treatments for the future, and that first stage is actually dose-finding trials, so finding the right dose and looking for a signal for efficacy from that drug,” said Dr Lim.