Will I be left with no treatment?

No. If there is a standard treatment for your cancer, every group in the trial gets it. The comparison is usually standard treatment plus the new drug against standard treatment plus a placebo, which is a dummy with no active drug in it. A placebo on its own is only used when there is no standard treatment to give.

A placebo is not there to take care away from you. Ask your team straight out what the other group receives, and have them name the actual drugs.

Written by two physicians. Checked against patient information from the US National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK.