What are correlative research studies, and how are they related to clinical trials?
In addition to answering questions about the effectiveness of new interventions, clinical trials provide the opportunity for additional research. These additional research studies, called correlative or ancillary studies, may use blood, tumor, or other tissue specimens (also known as “biospecimens”) obtained from trial participants before, during, or after treatment. For example, the molecular characteristics of tumor specimens collected during a trial might be analyzed to see if there is a relationship between the presence of a certain gene mutation or the amount of a specific protein and how trial participants responded to the treatment they received. Information obtained from these types of studies could lead to more accurate predictions about how individual patients will respond to certain cancer treatments, improved ways of finding cancer earlier, new methods of identifying people who have an increased risk of cancer, and new approaches to try to prevent cancer. Clinical trial par
