Patient Advocacy

Patient advocacy is an integral part of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.

Alliance Patient Advocates are cancer survivors, living with cancer, caregivers and those affected by cancer.  They come from all walks of life, from rural and urban areas across the country. They play an active role in cancer research by bringing the patient's perspective to the investigative and clinical research environment. Patient advocates help clinical researchers identify gaps in cancer patient care and to find better ways to treat people with cancer more quickly.

Alliance Patient Advocates:
   ►  Attend and participate in scientific meetings
   ►  Review study concepts and protocols
   ►  Assist in designing study accrual strategies
   ►  Develop plain language study results summaries
   ►  Make presentations to interested groups of scientists and clinicians interested in the patient perspective

Alliance Patient Advocates also serve on National Cancer Institute (NCI) scientific and advocacy steering committees, are members and officers in national cancer organizations, and some are current participants in ongoing clinical trials. They are available for group meetings and community presentations about the role of patient advocates in the clinical trials in cancer care.

To learn more about patient advocacy and patient resources, please visit the NCI's Office of Advocacy Relations and view cancer-related resources of this website. To learn more about clincal trials, view the American Cancer Society's videos featuring a former Alliance patient advocate and Alliance researcher and also take a look at this brief, informative video. To meet the members of the Alliance Patient Advocate Committee, click the link above on the left.

Watch this video: Patty Spears (Chair, Alliance Patient Advocate Committee) explains how involving advocates in all stages of cancer research helps patients live longer, live better, or both!

In addition, brief summaries highlighting recently published Alliance study results can be found on the Alliance Study Results Summaries page.