Concerneddaughter, my husband had the PDL-1 trial. What you need to ask the doctors is what phase is the drug trial in. If they already have patients participating in the trial, then how have these people been doing, what kind of cancers do they have, and generally speaking, what kind of side effect(s) do they suffer from most. You will have to sign an informed consent document in which all the possible side effects, the aims of the trial and all the tests that are required during the trial (e.g. Biopsies, ECG, Blood work, urine sample,etc.)

Clinical trials are not always available so if you have this opportunity, maybe your Dad would like to consider participating. If it fails to work for him, he will have the conventional chemo to return to at a later point.

As it is a trial, there will be lots of 'unknowns' even for the doctors. There have also been limited stats collected. So, your dad will need to be comfortable with getting answers like, "I can't say," from his doctors. However, he will be monitored closely. At our hospital, we were given the MO's pager number, the trial nurse's number, the on-call medical oncologist's number to call if anything happened while we were at home. I felt quite supported. However, a trial is a trial, it may work for your dad or it may not. It is just another thing to try.

If you have other questions, I would be happy to try and answer them.