What happens during and after a clinical trial?

During a clinical trial

During the clinical trial, your treatment team may include doctors, nurses, social workers and other health providers who will provide your healthcare. They will do the tests and exams related to the study. They will usually share your results and provide other information to your personal doctor(s) if you allow.

You may be asked to do tasks at home so that they can keep track of how you are doing. For example, you may be asked to write down what foods you eat each day. To make sure the final results of the clinical trial are accurate, everyone in the study must do all the tasks the treatment team asks. These can include: coming to your visits, taking all medicines given and doing all the home tasks correctly.

After a clinical trial

What happens after the clinical trial is over depends on the type of study it was.  In general, when the clinical trial is over, the treatment team will look at the results together from everyone in the trial.  If it was a clinical trial for a new medicine and the results showed that the medicine worked, the trial will continue to the next clinical trial phase. In most cases, when the trial ends, the people in the study are no longer needed. In the next phase, a new group of people are selected.

At the end of the trial, you usually do not get your individual results. But the summary of everyone's results are included together in a published report or article you can get online, from a library or from the treatment team.