What are other safety issues in using telomerase therapy?
As with any new anti-cancer treatment, there needs to be clinical trials. In Phase I trials we would determine if there are immediate side effects and toxicities of such treatments. These would initially be given to patients that had failed all other treatments and the volunteers for such trials are important in understanding the potential problems we may run into in more comprehensive clinical trials. After phase I trials are completed and overt toxicities are deemed not to be a problem, then randomized phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are used to test the efficacy of the new therapy.