Clinical Trials

Cancer clinical trials help answer important questions about medical care in an effort to develop new and improved ways to treat all patients with cancer and those who will develop cancer in the future.

Find current clinical trials offered by Duke Cancer Institute:

• Colorectal cancer-related clinical trials
• All cancer clinical trials

Research Overview

Doctors and scientists at the Duke Gastrointestinal Cancers Program are at the forefront of the quest to develop new treatments and cures for GI cancers and side effects of treatment. For example:

• Duke was the lead center for a national clinical trial for an experimental drug called bevacizumab (trade name Avastin), the first "anti-angiogenesis" drug to prove that it can shrink tumors and extend survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Patients who received bevacizumab along with standard chemotherapy survived longer than patients who received standard chemotherapy alone. Avastin has been approved by the FDA and is now considered the standard of care treatment for first-line colon cancer.
• Duke offers the only intra-operative radiation facility of its kind in the Southeast, allowing the team to deliver a highly specialized form of radiation directly to the tumor in the operating room without interfering with sensitive organs.
• Duke abdominal imagers have pioneered a newer, less invasive screening method called "virtual colonoscopy," which uses a computerized tomography scanner to look at the colon, rather than a scope.
• Duke physicians have been leaders in developing procedures such as laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer, embolization of liver masses, and radiosurgery of liver tumors.
• Investigators at Duke are developing dendritic cell-based vaccines for pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Dendritic cells are immune cells that activate the body’s immune system to fight cancerous cells.
• Duke Gastrointestinal Cancer researchers are actively designing, conducting, and disseminating information from clinical studies that address common cancer-related symptoms and concerns encountered by patients throughout the care continuum. Examples include breathlessness, pain, nausea/vomiting, insomnia, psychological distress, and spiritual need.