From NIC’s dictionary: Compassionate Use Trial (also called Expanded Access
Trial): A way to provide an investigational therapy to a patient who is not
eligible to receive that therapy in a clinical trial, but who has a serious
or life-threatening illness for which other treatments are not available.
Expanded access allows a patient to receive promising but not yet fully
studied or approved cancer therapies when no other treatment option exists.
Partnership For Compassionate Use Therapy: “PCUT is a 501c3 non-profit
company with the social mission of delivering potentially life-extending
treatment options to dying patients who have no other effective treatment
available to them.” http://bit.ly/mA5mRg
A PDF copy of “Expanding Expanded Access: How the Food and Drug
Administration Can Achieve Better Access to Experimental Drugs for Seriously
Ill Patients” http://bit.ly/kQIQs9.
Framework for Experimental Drug Use in Terminally Ill Patients, by Roxanne
Nelson, RN http://bit.ly/mmBq7i
A PDF copy of "Access to Investigational Interventions Outside of Clinical
Trials: Policy Statement, http://bit.ly/nckBAu
Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs: The Alliance is
committed to helping create wider access to developmental cancer drugs and
other drugs for serious life-threatening illnesses. http://bit.ly/jgeO5c
PDF copy of the text of the Compassionate Access Act to understand why this
is such a vital piece of legislation which was re-introduced in the US
Congress in 2010. http://bit.ly/cbOYwe
Expanded access: "A company sponsoring a drug in the late stages of drug
development, such as Phase III clinical trials, can offer expanded access
programs for patients who are not able to enroll in a clinical trial. The
FDA generally approves these EAPs if the drug has shown that it works at
least somewhat to treat a specific cancer in the clinical trials that are
being done. " http://bit.ly/kP667k