Newly diagnosed cancer patients want above all to survive and to be offered a treatment that is right for them.
But how does the doctor know which is the right treatment in any situation? In order to find out, doctors have to conduct clinical trials or studies, in which patients are prepared to take part when it is not known for sure what is the best treatment.
Treatment improvements come about by painstaking planning by multi-disciplinary teams.
They work out procedures for randomised controlled trials to determine answers, by rigorous scientific method, to many questions about therapies.
Testing new drugs effects is only a part of research.
Information is also needed about combinations of treatments, their timing, their sequence, their duration and the effects of these on not just patients survival, but also their well-being.
Doctors can then offer choices based on evidence rather than belief.
The stumbling block for the patient is often accepting the randomisation process.
Randomisation is necessary so that the groups being offered the different treatments are similar to each other in all aspects: the doctors will then know that any differences in the results can only be due to the treatment.
The patient is randomised by computer to avoid any bias being introduced by the doctor or the patients which would occur if treatments were chosen by them.
It is important that large numbers of patients are recruited so that even small differences in treatments can be detected.
This knowledge can mean improvements for many patients in the future.
I believe that patients should share the responsibility for the design and presentation of clinical trials.
In this way, aspects of cancer and treatment which matter to them can be considered and included.
Evidence about quality as well as quantity of life is important for cancer patients: this too should be measured whenever appropriate.