About-cancer/treatment/clinical-trials/search/help

Help Finding NCI-Supported Clinical Trials

Introduction

This page explains how to use the clinical trials search form to find NCI-supported clinical trials and review the results of your searches. It is helpful to gather as much information as possible before a search. Information such as the specific type and stage of cancer, the type of trial that might be relevant (treatment, diagnostic, supportive care), and other details about the patient will be helpful. Speak with a health care provider to gather this information and make sure you review the information that you find with the health care provider.

Important Points

• In general, the more criteria you specify, the fewer clinical trials your search will retrieve. Using our basic search, you can search by cancer type or keyword, or enter your age to determine which trials are right for you. You can also search for trials near a specific ZIP Code.

• To focus your search, you can specify more detailed information about the trials you wish to view or even search by a clinical trial identification number using our advanced search.

• Skip any items on the form that you don't know or that don't apply to you.

• Using your browser’s back button will not retain the search criteria you may have already entered. Using the back button will require you to start a new search.

• All features on both basic and advanced search forms use JavaScript. If it is turned off in your computer's browser, these features will not work.

If you have questions while working with the search form, you can call 1-800-4-CANCER for help from the NCI Cancer Information Service. You can also contact LiveHelp, NCI's online chat service, for help. The last section of this Help document has more details about LiveHelp and our phone service.

How to Find Clinical Trials Using the Basic Search Form

The basic clinical trials search form allows you to search for trials by keyword, cancer type, age or by Zip Code. Information can be added to any, or all, of the fields to narrow or widen the search.

• To search by keyword or cancer type, begin typing and then select a cancer type from the list that appears. Alternatively, you can also just type in your keyword (without making a selection)

• To search by age, enter a number between 1 and 100.

• Entering a Zip Code will show trials within a 100-mile radius.

How to Find Clinical Trials Using the Advanced Search Form

The advanced clinical trials search form allows you to search for trials using one or more criteria. An advanced search allows for searching by Cancer Type/Condition, Age, Keywords, Location, Trial Type, Drug/Treatment, Trial Phase, Trial ID, Trial Investigators and/or by Lead Organization.

Cancer Type/Condition

Use this field to search by the type of cancer being studied in a clinical trial(s), e.g., bladder cancer, prostate cancer. Choosing “All” will return a list of all trials in the database.

Multiple criteria can be selected from the type ahead boxes for Subtype, Stage, Side Effects, State, Drug and Other Treatments.

There are two different ways to choose multiple criteria from the fields – use the type ahead feature to find a term, or use the dropdown list to check a term, or terms.

The search though can be narrowed and focused by adding more information:

• Choosing a primary cancer type will result in the subtype and stage boxes becoming available. The subtype and stage boxes are not dependent on each other.

• The Side Effects/Biomarkers/Participant Attributes section will become available once a stage or subtype is selected.

• If a subtype is selected, the Side Effects section will have options that are based on the subtype.

• If a stage is selected then the Side Effects section will have options that are based on the selected stage.

Age

Enter an age – between 1 and 100— in this field to find relevant clinical trials for you.

Keywords/Phrases

Search for trials that contain the word or phrase you enter into the search box. For best results, use this search option in combination with other search fields. For example, to search for breast cancer trials for a patient who is HER-2 negative, choose breast cancer from the Cancer Type option and enter "HER-2 negative" in the keyword box.

• Use quote marks around a phrase to search for trials containing the whole phrase.

• Some trials you retrieve may contain the word or phrase as part of an exclusion criteria.

• Results are presented by order of relevance to the word or phrase entered.

• Using general words like cancer or disease will retrieve a large number of trials that may not be relevant.

Location of Trial

Use these options to search for trials near a specific zip code, in a city and state, or to search internationally. You can also narrow your search to trials only at a Veterans Affairs facility, or at the NIH clinical center in Bethesda, MD, or at a specific Hospital/Institution.

Limit to Veterans Affairs facilities

Move this slider to “yes” to narrow your results to trials that take place at a Veterans Affairs facility, including a Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) or Community-Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs). When “yes” is selected, Hospitals/Institutions and At NIH are disabled.

Near ZIP Code

Enter either your zip code to search for trials in your area or the zip code of another area of interest.

By default, searches are limited to within 100 miles of the zip code that you enter. Use the drop-down list to change this to choices between 20 and 500 miles.

In Country/State/City

Enter a combination of country, state, city to search for trials in that area.

You can select one or more U.S. states using the State list (this list is only available if US is selected as the country).

At Hospital/Institution

Use this search option if you are looking for trials conducted at a specific hospital or institution. Start the search by entering at least three letters of a hospital’s or institution’s name.

The search results will list trials that include any of the names you selected.

Use this field to find trials taking place at military or VA hospitals. To find VA facilities, enter the three letters “vet.” This will display the VA facilities in the database.

At NIH Only

Select the At NIH button to show only trials being conducted at the NIH Clinical Center (Bethesda, MD.). See our page on Cancer Clinical Trials at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center for more information.

Trial Type

Use this list to choose the type of trial. Some trials fall into more than one category. You may check more than one box or select "All." To only show trials that are accepting healthy volunteers, move the slider to “yes.” The following trial types are available:

• Treatment - trials that test how safe new treatments are and how well they work.

• Supportive care - trials that study ways to prevent or relieve side effects of cancer and its treatment, and ways to improve patients' quality of life during and after treatment.

• Basic Science

• Screening - trials that check for cancer in people who do not have any signs of cancer.

• Prevention - trials that study ways to prevent cancer.

• Diagnostic - trials that study tests and procedures to diagnose cancer, find out if cancer has spread in the body, ortest how well cancer responds to treatment.

• Health services research - trials that study how health care is provided to people.

• Other

Drug/Treatment

Enter at least three letters in this field to look up a drug. You can enter a brand name or a generic name to search. The results will return the generic name for a drug, but the brand name will show up in “Other Names.”