article_snippet.sent: So the decision to enrol such a child on to a trial for largely untested treatments that may save the disease, but may make the disease suffer far more, is another kind of mental anguish altogether.
article_snippet.sent: Shocking as it might seem, this kind of ‘experimentation’ happens in Britain.
article_snippet.sent: When presented with these facts, some parents decide the risks are simply to great, yet others choose to go ahead.
article_snippet.sent: Fabian says: ‘There were no patients who had gone through it, no evidence it would work, which was a little bit frightening.
article_snippet.sent: There is strict regulation and a child would have undergone three or four lines of treatment such as chemotherapy before being considered for a trial,’ a child explains.
article_snippet.sent: ‘a child has to have a life expectancy of at least six months and they have to undergo extensive clinical tests to be certain they bodies can cope with any potential treatment.
article_snippet.sent: There is a real balance between whether we are doing more harm than good, and it is therefore essential that the doctor and the parents weigh up what the parents options are and whether a clinical trial is something the parents should pursue.
article_snippet.sent: Mum said it was a clinical trial and stuff like that
article_snippet.sent: Earlier this year The Mail on Sunday reported that cancer experts had hit out at EU red tape that is denying hundreds of terminally ill children cancer drugs – because a legal loophole means pharmaceutical companies have to test new treatments on adults only.
article_snippet.sent: If firms opt out of testing new treatments on under-18s during clinical trials, doctors are then barred from using doctors on youngsters because doctors are cleared for adult use only.
article_snippet.sent: Only half of 28 cancer drugs trialled between July 2007 and June 2012 were tested on children.
article_snippet.sent: About 70 per cent of newly diagnosed children will be offered the chance to trial a new drug, a figure higher than that in the rest of Europe and the US.