The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), an alliance of 21 of the nation’s leading cancer centers, provides information to help patients and health professionals make informed decisions about cancer care.
Strengths: Knowing how cancer is treated at the nation’s top cancer centers may help you make more informed decisions about your own treatment. The NCCN site features cancer treatment guidelines designed for patients that were developed by doctors at NCCN-member institutions. There are also summaries of cancer services and clinical trials offered at each of the NCCN cancer centers, as well as contact information.
Breast Cancer Treatment Summaries
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s patient summaries for breast cancer are designed to help you understand your disease and inform you of the best treatments available at leading cancer centers throughout the United States.
You can search for treatment summaries by keyword or category. Categories are grouped by stage (extent or severity) of cancer diagnosis. Summaries include information such as background, diagnosis, tumor stage, treatment and prognosis. Treatment options are clearly grouped into categories such as surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and targeted therapy.
You will also find information on breast reconstruction following mastectomy, as well as a link to a Guide to Clinical Trials. Also helpful is the breast cancer checklist, which prompts you to remember key points such as getting second opinions, understanding the order in which treatments will be given, how to manage side effects, and whether or not you will be able to work during your treatments.
Clinical Trials at Comprehensive Cancer Centers
NCCN is a voluntary association of select centers across the United States, known for providing exceptional cancer care. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Web site helps you find a clinical trial near you by providing a clickable map of their 21 comprehensive cancer centers throughout the United States.
Colon and Rectal Cancer Treatment Summaries
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s patient summaries for colon and rectal cancer are designed to help you understand your disease and inform you of the best treatments available at leading cancer centers throughout the United States.
You can search for treatment summaries by keyword or category. Categories are grouped by stage (extent or severity) of cancer diagnosis. Each summary includes information such as background, diagnosis, tumor stage, treatment and prognosis. Treatment options are clearly grouped into categories such as surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, chemoradiation (a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy), and targeted therapy.
You will also find a Guide to Clinical Trials, and a colon and rectal cancer checklist, which prompts you to remember key points such as getting second opinions, understanding the order in which treatments will be given, how to manage side effects, and whether or not you will be able to work during your treatments.
Comprehensive Cancer Centers
National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is a voluntary association of select centers across the United States, known for providing exceptional cancer care and conducting both clinical and basic cancer research. The NCCN Web site presents a clickable map of the United States that links to profiles of its member centers. The profiles include general information about the centers, descriptions of their areas of expertise, and links to their Web sites.
Lung Cancer Treatment Summaries
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s patient summaries for lung cancer are designed to help you understand your disease and inform you of the best treatments available at leading cancer centers throughout the United States.
You can search for treatment summaries by keyword or category. Categories are grouped by stage (extent or severity) of cancer diagnosis. Each summary includes information such as background, diagnosis, tumor stage, treatment and prognosis. Treatment options are clearly grouped into categories such as surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy.
You will also find a Guide to Clinical Trials, and a lung cancer checklist, which prompts you to remember key points such as getting second opinions, understanding the order in which treatments will be given, how to manage side effects, and whether or not you will be able to work during your treatments.
NCCN Guidelines for Patients with Breast Cancer
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is a voluntary association of select cancer centers across the United States known for providing exceptional cancer care. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients™ give you access to the same information, written in a patient-friendly format, that physicians use for treatment decisions. These guidelines are developed by 43 different NCCN Guidelines Panels composed of nearly 900 world-leading experts from each of the NCCN Member Institutions.
The breast cancer guidelines are specific to women with breast cancer because the incidence of breast cancer in men is very low. You will need to know both the sub-type of your breast cancer and the stage of your disease to be able to evaluate the options, which are presented as “decision trees,” or pathways. These decision trees outline step-by-step decisions from diagnosis through treatment and survivorship. Once you know this information, simply follow the arrows corresponding to the type and stage of your cancer to find the treatment recommendations.
The guidelines are available in PDF format, a document that requires the free Adobe Acrobat reader, available for download at www.adobe.com. The table of contents and glossary of terms are designed to help you navigate this 100-page document.
Prostate Cancer Treatment Summaries
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s patient summaries for prostate cancer are designed to help you understand your disease and inform you of the best treatments available at leading cancer centers throughout the United States.
You can search for treatment summaries by keyword or category. Prostate categories are grouped into those for localized and advanced cancers. Each summary includes information such as background, diagnosis, tumor stage, treatment and prognosis. Treatment options are clearly grouped into categories such as active monitoring, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, external beam radiation therapy, brachytherapy, and surgery.
You will also find a Guide to Clinical Trials, and a prostate cancer checklist, which prompts you to remember key points such as getting second opinions, understanding the order in which treatments will be given, how to manage side effects, and whether or not you will be able to work during your treatments.
Treatment Summaries and Guidelines
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a not-for-profit alliance of 21 of the world’s leading cancer centers, has recently launched a patient-focused site which presents summaries of how cancer is treated at leading cancer centers throughout the United States. The patient treatment summaries currently cover about 70 percent of all cancers in adults — including breast, colon, lung, Non-Hodgkins, ovarian, rectal and prostate — and the site plans to add new ones throughout 2009 and 2010.
You can search these summaries by keyword or by cancer type (category). Each summary follows a similar template, including information such as background, diagnosis, tumor stage, treatment and prognosis. Each also includes a checklist of things to remember, such as considering second opinions, and asking your doctor if you will be able to work during treatment. In addition, you will find quick links to related content on the site, such as overviews on cancer staging and clinical trials, and links to noteworthy external resources and organizations. Terms that may be unfamiliar are in blue italics; you can read their definitions by clicking on them.
The treatment summaries are based on the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™.These guidelines are intended for professionals, although anyone, after submitting an “end user agreement” can download and print them. You will need the Adobe Reader software to do so. The guidelines are versioned and indicate when they were last updated.
