Two days before her 39th birthday, Melissa Irving felt a lump in her left breast. "My husband and I had started a fitness regime and I thought I might have pulled a muscle," she says. "I inspected myself in the shower and I remember thinking, 'I don't think that little lump is meant to be there.' " Irving was shocked when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A mother of two from the NSW central coast, she was fit and healthy, with no family history of breast cancer.

In the first meeting with her surgeon, Irving was told she was eligible to participate in a breast cancer trial where chemo and hormone therapy would be combined before surgery to reduce the size of her tumours, helping conserve as much of her breast as possible. "The standard method is to go straight into surgery but I opted for the trial," Irving says. "The hormone and chemotherapy beforehand shrunk my tumours so I ended up with a lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy."

Most of the trials Boyle is involved with are the final step in testing before a drug goes on the market. Credit:Stocksy

Oncologist Fran Boyle says many women with breast cancer are surprised when they are offered the chance to participate in a clinical trial. "We tend to associate clinical trials with desperate situations – that you've run out of options," says Professor Boyle, who chaired the Breast Cancer Trials board from 2012 to 2015. Breast Cancer Trials is the largest independent oncology clinical trials research group in Australia and New Zealand, and has been responsible for major developments in breast cancer treatment and prevention for more than 40 years.

Most of the trials Boyle is involved with are the final step in testing before a drug goes on the market. "It means we already know a fair amount about the drug, the dose and its side effects," she says. "What we are doing is comparing it with standard treatment. In many of our trials, half the women will get standard treatment and the other half will get standard treatment plus an extra something. No one misses out."