Breast cancer research

All treatments have to be fully researched before they can be adopted as standard treatment for everyone. This is so that

• We can be sure they work
• We can be sure they work better than the treatments available at the moment
• We know they are safe

First of all, treatments are developed and tested in laboratories. For ethical and safety reasons, experimental treatments must be lab tested before they can be tried on patients. If a treatment described here is said to be at the laboratory stage of research, it is not ready for patients and is not available either within or outside the NHS.

Tests in patients are called clinical trials. The trials and research section has information about what trials are including information about the 4 phases of trials.  If you are interested in taking part in a clinical trial, visit our searchable database of clinical trials recruiting in the UK and choose 'breast' from the drop down menu.  If there is a trial you are interested in, print it off and take it to your own specialist. If the trial is suitable for you, your doctor will need to refer you to the research team. 

• Research into preventing and diagnosing breast cancer
• Research into treating breast cancer
• Research into living with breast cancer