FAQ

Clinical trials are part of clinical research and at the heart of all medical advances. Clinical trials look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat disease. The goal of clinical trials is to determine if these treatment, prevention, and behavior approaches are safe and effective. People take part in clinical trials for many reasons. Healthy volunteers say they take part to help others and to contribute to moving science forward. People with an illness or disease also take part to help others, but also to possibly receive the newest treatment and to have added (or extra) care and attention from the clinical trial staff. Clinical trials offer hope for many people and a chance to help researchers find better treatments for others in the future.  If a new approach proves to be effective, it may become a new standard of care.

More information about clinical trials can be found here: https://www.nih.gov/health-information/nih-clinical-research-trials-you/basics

If you want to discuss clinical research trials, and you are already a patient, ask your provider at your next visit. Patients or potential patients also can call the HOA Research Department at 315-472-7504, extension 1350.You can see a list of current trials at HOA here.

Placebos are sometimes used in clinical trials when the trial is looking at adding a treatment to an already approved standard of care plan. A patient who participates in a clinical trial with a placebo will receive standard of care treatment and a placebo or standard of care treatment and the investigational treatment.

When a clinical trial uses a placebo, the participating patients are well informed that what they are receiving could be a placebo and not active drug.

A placebo is designed to look like the medicine being tested, but does not contain any active drug.