04/01/2010

Doctors and patients both want the best chance of recovery from an illness. But when the condition is cancer - and current treatments have failed - what hope do clinical trials offer?

Vivienne Parry asks whether patients take part in clinical trials simply to get better - or for the common good, hoping for future cures. Now that cancer treatments are becoming more individually tailored and effective, is it worth the risk of trying to develop new drugs which may only be slightly better?