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Updated NCCN.com Summaries Provide Patients with Information to Accompany Professional Guidelines

By Jennifer Hinkel, eBulletin Editor-in-Chief

With the wide availability of information on the internet, patients and families are increasingly gaining health care knowledge from the web. However, health care information found online may be confusing, unclear, overwhelming, or not up-to-date. NCCN Treatment Summaries for People with Cancer™, available at NCCN.com, provide patients with current, understandable information about cancer treatment options.

“NCCN believes that patients, like professionals, should have access to up-to-date information that is specific to their disease, based on scientific evidence, and written in a way that can be easily understood,” said Kimberly Callan, Editor, NCCN.com.

Most recently, the NCCN Treatment Summaries for People with Cancer™ for breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancers, three of the most commonly occurring cancers, were updated on NCCN.com. Each treatment summary provides information specific to the type of cancer, including detailed information about the treatment options available and when various treatment options may be appropriate.

Summaries are broken out by stage of cancer, so that patients can read information customized to their individual diagnosis. For example, the NCCN Patient Treatment Summaries for prostate cancer include a summary for advanced prostate cancer and a summary for localized prostate cancer. Some treatment summaries also include information about specific sub-types of disease. The NCCN Patient Treatment Summaries for breast cancer, for example, include discussions of inflammatory breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and information on cross-cutting issues in breast cancer, such as HER2 testing. All of the summaries include information on diagnosis, stage, treatments, prognosis, and life after treatment. The NCCN Patient Treatment Summaries for colorectal cancers include information on rectal cancer, colon cancer, and metastatic colorectal cancer, as well as an overview of the disease.

“One of the key features of these Treatment Summaries is that they provide patients with information based on the NCCN Guidelines. Because so many oncology professionals are using the NCCN Guidelines in their decision-making, it is important that patients have access to information that mirrors what their physicians are using,” said Joan McClure, Senior Vice President, Clinical Information and Publications at NCCN.

The treatment summaries are available on NCCN.com, the consumer website of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

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