Our investigators and surgeons participate in a wide array of clinical research to advance state-of-the-art treatments and techniques, thus expanding the forefront of medicine.

Some clinical research, while pertinent to patient care, does not immediately involve patient care.  In these cases patients may be asked to participate by giving blood or tissue samples or by responding to questionnaires.  The information gathered from these resources allows the researcher to more fully understand the disease state to develop future avenues for treatment, investigate potential methods of screening or detection and elicit quality-of-life issues among other purposes.

Clinical research that directly involves patient care typically entails the investigative use of a drug, device, therapy or new combinations of treatments.  This form of research is generally referred to as a clinical trial.  Answers to many of your questions regarding clinical trials may be found on our "What to expect page" (link this to the NCI info page).  All of this research activity by our surgeon-investigators is to ensure their patients have access to the best and most advanced care.

As the national registry for clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world, ClinicalTrials.gov lists over 700 studies currently recruiting at The University of Chicago. Below is just a sampling of our faculty and their clinical protocols.

View a list of our faculty and their clinical protocols.