Do you need to stop your medication to participate in a trial?

It depends on the trial. Some trials will examine whether the treatment being tested can be used in addition to existing treatments.

You can continue taking your current treatments alongside the trial medication in these cases. Other trials will look at a new treatment meant to be used independently. You might have to stop your current therapy to participate in the trial in this scenario.

Researchers typically do not stop people from taking their medications and switch them to placebos for four years, as this would be unfair and unethical.

These types of trials are carefully managed and often use multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS) designs with multiple treatment options to ensure that participants are not left on a placebo after stopping their regular treatment, which would not be ethical.

Learn more about medication management before screening: EoE Guidelines

The answer is provided by Karen Faulkner,

Senior Research Physician  at Synexus Clinical Research Ltd