Even patients with a cochlear implant could benefit with an improved neuronal compone

[jillio]

I understand everything. It's clear the stem cells perspective are wonderful. The only thing I really cannot understand is how it is possible to base such a crucial choice on expectations about the timing of a novel technology. 20-15-5 years are predictions! It is impossible to know when a therapy will finally become viable.
OK, some clinical trials are going to begin, but they can require 5-10 years or more!! And nobody can assure they will be successful. Even if they will succeed, there will still be a severe lack of statistics on long term effects, failure rates, etc. Moreover, clinical trials will focus on one, or a few specific kinds of hearing loss.
It's really too vague! Too vague!!
Sure, anybody can decide to risk his own health and candidate for clinical trials, but consider you are going to get experimental, not fully tested procedure, exposing to unknown and potentially major risks.

Exactly! I keep hearing "Somewhere over the rainbow...." playing over and over in my head.

 

[JennyB]

Thanks for the headsup. Are you under NDA for your clinical trial? If not, what is your trial for? I will wait for phase I trials to conclude then apply for phase II trials. If I am accepted, good. If not, ill travel overseas to another developed country and get it done. Do clinical trials charge or are they free?

I'm doing a trial for something totally not related to hearing and something I would rather not say right now.

Some trials pay you, some are free, I am yet to see one that you pay for.

 

[jillio]

One note on "clinical trials". DeafDude you see to think you can just walk into a clinical trial because you want to...coming from a family of medical professionals and from being in a clinical trial for something right now I can tell you it isn't that easy.

Sometimes they post the trials and you can apply to be in them. Often they have age and health standards that you must fall in. Very few people actually fit the mold they want.

Other trials pull from only certain clinics and existing patients. Others only pull from certain areas. Say a trial is taking place in a different state, you would have to live within that state.

It's not as easy as you think.

This is quite true, JennyB. Clinical trials only accept the candidates that meet a very narrow set of criteria.

 

[jillio]

I'm doing a trial for something totally not related to hearing and something I would rather not say right now.

Some trials pay you, some are free, I am yet to see one that you pay for.

When they pay a participant, it is generally well advanced beyond the clinical phase and into the last phase of research needed for approval. And generally not for surgical procedures, or any type of invasive procedures. Pharmaceutical companies will sometimes offer pay for trial participants, but only in the final stage of research where they are comparing results of an already proven safe med to a placebo using a control group. More for efficacy studies than clinical research.