What are eligibility criteria in clinical trials?

Eligibility criteria are the requirements a clinical trial sets for who can take part. Common criteria include your current health, medical history, family medical history, specific risk factors, age, treatment history, and the genetic changes found in your tumor.

Every trial sets its own criteria based on what it's designed to study. A trial testing a treatment for a specific tumor mutation, for example, will have different requirements than a broader trial open to more people with the same general type of cancer.

To find out whether you meet a trial's criteria, you typically go through a pre-screening step first, followed by a more detailed screening process that may include specific tests. It's possible not to qualify for a particular trial based on your history or test results, which doesn't necessarily mean you're ineligible for every trial — other studies may have different requirements that fit your situation.