Breast Cancer Clinical Trials

At Henry Ford, we take seriously the responsibility to advance the treatment of breast cancer, and the opportunity that clinical trials afford patients to gain access to new and developing treatments for the disease.

What are clinical trials?

Clinical trials are research studies of an investigational treatment. By treating real patients with new drugs or procedures that have undergone rigorous testing and have been approved for safe testing in patients, trials help physicians and clinical researchers determine if a new approach is more effective than existing approaches to treating disease.

Clinical trials have contributed important information to breast cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment. For some patients, participating in a breast cancer clinical trial provides early access to effective treatments not yet widely available. It can be a way to access experimental drugs or procedures when the current treatment options haven’t worked.

Breast cancer clinical trials at Henry Ford

Our breast cancer physicians participate in a number of clinical trials, and we have extensive access to many others. A wide variety of trials for different stages of the disease are an available option for any patient at any time.

Our physician team has joined with other hospitals in large organizations to work together to create clinical research that has strong impact to change clinical practice in progressive way. These efforts include:

• SWOG, a cancer research cooperative group that designs and conducts multidisciplinary clinical trials to improve the practice of medicine in preventing, detecting and treating cancer, and to enhance the quality of life for cancer survivors.
• NRG Oncology, which brings together organizations with more than 150 years of cumulative research experience to conduct practice defining, multi-institutional clinical trials resulting in the improved survival and quality of life of patients with cancer.

Our Clinical Trials Office provides the clinical research infrastructure that enables Henry Ford Health System patients to safely participate in clinical trials.

Learn more about clinical trials at Henry Ford.

Patient eligibility for breast cancer clinical trials

At our weekly Breast Cancer Tumor Board, physicians and research nurses discuss each patient’s case. One topic of discussion is whether the patient is a good fit for any current clinical trials.

If so, our team will present the clinical trial as one option for the patient’s care pathway. Patients then have the choice whether to apply for participation in the trial.