gms | German Medical Science

27th German Cancer Congress Berlin 2006

German Cancer Society (Frankfurt/M.)

22. - 26.03.2006, Berlin

Importance of clinical trials in the treatment of gastrointestinal tumours.

Meeting Abstract

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27. Deutscher Krebskongress. Berlin, 22.-26.03.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. DocIS035

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dkk2006/06dkk035.shtml

Published: March 20, 2006

© 2006 Fietkau.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

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Up to now only a minority of patients are treated in Germany within clinical trials. There are a lot of reasons mentioned:

  • the problems of the new German “Arneimittelgesetz”
  • not enough time for the information of the patients, the documentation and correction of the data
  • refusal of the patients to take part in clinical trials
  • the bad reputation or the inacceptance of clinical trials in the public

Nevertheles clinical improvements have been made during the last centuries mostly by the help of randomised clinical trials. For example the German rectal cancer trial showed that neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy is superior to postoperative treatment in terms of local control and acute and late toxicity. The survival of patients with metastazing colorectal cancer was consecutively improved from 6 – 9 months (median) to now over 20 months with the help of consecutive studies.