Australian Clinical Trials

An Australian Government initiative to provide information and resources to participants, healthcare providers, researchers and industry about taking part in, accessing and running clinical trials.

Search for a clinical trial

Find a clinical trial listed in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR). You can do a basic search or use the advanced search to enter more parameters.

Once you find a relevant trial, contact details are available from the ANZCTR study link.

Find out more

About clinical trials

Find out what a clinical trial is, why they’re important, and the different types and phases of clinical trials. 

Find a clinical trial

Find all the different places with information about clinical trials.

Who can take part

Find out who can participate in a clinical trial and how to take part.

Website update

Learn more about our refreshed website.

Your stories

3:22

With the clinical trials, I have been their number one priority, and they have basically made sure that I've been comfortable, and they've looked after me very, very well. For anybody you will feel a little bit apprehensive about ‘Will it help me, or won’t it?’, but I've gone into this with, a positive attitude. You know, the advancements in the drugs over my time, my journey, it has accelerated. And if I can be that tiny piece that might help find a cure and find a reason for MS, I'm quite excited about that. But he explained the importance of clinical trials and explained that without them, the treatments would not improve. It might not benefit me, but it will definitely benefit generations in the future. And given I have a daughter, that was one thing that sort of made me consider the clinical trial.

He did explain it in great detail, and he gave me time to go away and think about it. My husband was with me at the time, so we discussed it at length, and we just decided that if there was anything that I could do or we could do as a family to improve outcomes in the future, it was worth doing. Late last year, because I was finished on the trial and I was passed my five-year diagnosis, I had to say goodbye to my oncologist and the whole team in there, and it was actually probably the most emotional I think I've been throughout my whole journey because they became such a part of my life.

The only difference from being in the clinical trial or not, was that I would have an extra level of people to talk to, if you like. I would have my GP, obviously I would have the oncologist, but on top of that I would also have the clinical trial staff. And that's one thing that I found to be of use. I was better able to ask them questions about what was going on, what this meant, what that meant. Because of that, then we were able to deliver that comfort. I think that was vitally important. One of the clinical trial nurses had been a cancer survivor as well. So, she had some perhaps even better rapport, if you like. Medicine is advancing all the time, but it can only advance, with help from the patients. It's all very well the scientists and the doctors coming up with new treatments. But until they try those treatments, then they're not going to know with any certainty whether those treatments will be successful.

Because I was in the clinical trial, I had probably more tests than I might otherwise have had. The CT scans went on a bit longer another couple of years, and I guess that was another comfort, if you like. Anyone considering a trial, be as open as you can and receptive because this is something that the greatest doctors and nurses in Australia are offering you, and the more that you can be willing to participate in the trial, it can only benefit you.

3:36

I was up at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne speaking to my doctors up there, and there was a clinical trial starting. I thought, well, I'll jump at any sort of trials. May not help me but it may help others. I was bit on the whole thing of ‘oh, it may work, it may not’. They were pretty confident that it was going to work from the start. Boosted my confidence levels a lot. The trial that I was in ran absolutely brilliantly. The communication between me and the team up at the RPA was absolutely fantastic. Because it was a success, I go off bushwalking and camping and all that sort of stuff now.

The people involved in the clinical trial are amazing. They’re always so caring and they keep the families involved in what's going on. If there is any questions that do come up outside of the appointments, they're always there. And your nurses interact with the kids as well to keep them preoccupied from what's actually going on. They love their bubbles, so always blowing bubbles for the kids. The most important thing was the support that I've gained through being in the clinical trial.

It's empowering to somebody to know that you're actually doing something positive when you're in a really negative space in life. I just want to help. I just want to do something. I didn't want to own the fact that I was a cancer survivor before, but now I'm like, I'm a cancer survivor and I can do this, and I want to help.

We had discussed the proposal with our GP. We have a lot of faith in him, and we probably wouldn't have participated if he hadn't been supportive. Every three months. Overall health was checked, a blood test taken. Checking blood thinning effect that the drug is meant to achieve. We had access to whoever was needed to give advice about the trial and the potential for a better outcome for all stroke victims or potential stroke victims. If people are in a position to take part in a trial, I would encourage them to do so.

So, you're getting the best possible health care, you know, while you're there and even that is a, I discovered, was a huge advantage because getting like a second opinion for free. It’s actually not a bad idea to get a slightly different view on a couple of occasions that's been quite valuable to me. With a trial they devoted almost to your wellbeing and care, and it's a very supportive and positive dynamic. And of course, because they've got a slightly medical research background, they're great sources of knowledge. So you can ask them about anything. They can talk about what's going on in the field, you know, what are the sort of potential promising, drugs that they're looking at or trials. So you suddenly got access to all this information from people right at the coalface. You come away feeling quite energised by it. You have these opportunities to draw positives, and I think that's what it is. It's, you know, the trial is just a very nurturing and positive environment because, you know, you've just immersed yourself in this community of people who are all trying to help you or help the cancer community generally find improved cures.

Much better than sitting on my backside at home feeling sorry for myself. Some of the best times, or the best experiences I've had have actually been involved in trials. You know, you come away feeling ‘well, that was-I feel good about that’.

2:27

Because clinical trials have a very rigorous protocol that needs to be followed, that then flows on to the rest of the treating community. The only way to know ‘Is this medication actually better than our standard medication? Is it a safe medication? Are the side effects minimal or reasonable?’ is to do a clinical trial and compare it with our standard treatment. And if that trial shows, ‘Yes this treatment is better’, well then that will become available to everyone.

It's all about trying to actually do things better to improve health outcomes. Clinical trials allow you to make those little steps that lead eventually to that big advance. If you don't have the clinical trials, you can't tell which is the advance and which is going backwards. You know I think we have to get all health professionals to be engaged in the idea that clinical trials are a necessary component of all health care. So, at all levels of the health care system, you can make improvements. And that it's not just about drugs, it's about non-drugs, it's about the choices in management, the choices in organisation. All of those can be assessed through clinical trials.

I've always had an interest in knowledge and new knowledge, and that's what clinical trials provide us with. I think it's more curiosity. Passion gets you interested, but curiosity keeps you going. I want to know what I can recommend to my patients. And that's what clinical trials do. They give you very reliable information that you can objectively give to patients, or to the general community about whether something works or not? I think there's no doubt that Australia is seen as punching above its weight. We publish, relative to our population, probably twice as much as what you'd expect.

Yeah look, I think clinical trials are incredibly important in providing evidence for what we do every day in general practice. I think we rely on that quality of evidence, really, to guide us in what we do in terms of management across so many areas of medicine, things like use of medications in terms of heart disease, in stroke prevention, all of the decisions we make day to day in general practice are based on that sort of evidence. And where we don't have that evidence, it's much more challenging in clinical practice to know that you're doing the best thing you can for your patients.