Finding the clinical trial you or your child participated in online is not difficult, but you will have to be patient about getting the results. It can take researchers at least a year to analyze the data collected during the study, depending on how complex it was. Once the analysis is complete, researchers may take another year to publish the findings in a journal article, which would be listed in the U.S. National Library of Medicine's PubMed website.
Of course, the easiest way to find out the progress of your clinical trial is to talk to your research coordinator or your CF care doctor. If you or your child participated in an interventional trial, the study sponsor will provide information on who received the treatment and who received the placebo to your cystic fibrosis research team once the trial has been completed. Your research coordinator will be able to share the results with you.
You can track the clinical trial progress online by using the Clinical Trial Finder, where the status of the phases are regularly updated, or sign up for an email alert. You also can follow the trial on clinicaltrials.gov.
After a clinical trial is completed, the study sponsor must decide whether the results warrant further research. If not, the trial might end with your participation.
Although that particular treatment may not have succeeded, your participation will have given valuable information to researchers, who will be able to refocus their efforts on more promising therapies.
“I don't regret doing a clinical trial if the drug fails because it still helps us get closer to more effective therapies. We need to weed out the ones that aren't working and then focus on moving on to the ones that are. The only way to do that is for patients to participate in studies.”
-- Meranda Sue Honaker, an adult with CF, who has participated in 10 clinical trials