Cancer clinical trials in the new millennium: novel challenges and opportunities for oncology nursing.

Because oncology nurses in day-to-day practice are key to clinical trial conduct, current dynamics impacting drug development and the clinical trials community must be delineated and understood. Increasing cancer clinical trial complexity raises concerns for the preservation of appropriate roles and responsibilities of oncology nurses while ensuring quality care for those trial participants. Oncology nurses have the unique opportunity to lead the way by developing and embracing creative, innovative strategies to orchestrate clinical trial complexities and thus preserve the future of these trials and the ongoing development of chemopreventive and anticancer agents.