Who Can Participate in Clinical Trials
All trials have guidelines about who can participate. These are called eligibility criteria. Eligibility criteria are used to ensure that trials include the sort of people who may benefit from the treatment and to make sure that people who take part are not exposed to avoidable risks. This means that there may not always be an appropriate or suitable clinical trial for you to take part in.
Inclusion criteria help the researchers to decide who can take part in the trial. Some trials only include people in a certain age group, gender, or at a particular stage of their illness.
Exclusion criteria state who cannot take part in the trial. For example, many drug trials do not allow pregnant women to take part as there may be a risk to the unborn baby. People who are already taking particular medicines may also be excluded as these may affect the trial treatment.
Before you go into a trial, you may have to have some extra tests to see if you are eligible or to ensure that you are not likely to be at risk of being harmed by the treatments in the trial. For example, if a potential side effect of a new drug is that it increases blood pressure you may have your blood pressure checked to see if you are eligible to join the trial.