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INTRODUCTION  Cancer is not a single disease but the summary term for
a larger number of diseases. All of them have in common
uncontrolled growth to form a mass of cells called tumor,
which if untreated causes the death of the organism. There is a
huge number of cancer-related sites on the net. That´s the
reason I prepared this guide. There are many sites related to
specific cancers. I will not refer to these sites because it would
go too far. If you are interested to learn about specific cancers
go to the directory Type
of Cancer. There are also many sites refering to hospitals and
treatment centers. I am also not linking any of these sites. You
will easily find them on other web sites.
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| GENERAL SITES If you want to exploit details with respect to cancer in general or individual cancers, treatments etc. there are several sites on the web. I already mentioned Noah´s page. The next three sites I further recommend are the American Cancer Society Homepage:, which virtually contains everything you might want to know including an extensive explanation of various drugs. There is also a News section, which is updated daily. The National Cancer Institute has several pages. The introductary NCI page leads to the other pages as well. To be complete I will list them here. One page reports about Plans and Priorities. For patients and health professionals the CancerNet site is probably most important. You can find descriptions and treatment options for different cancers. In my sections about special cancers I am always refering to specific sites from the NCI describing types of cancers. The NCI pages are not only about a cancer type in general such as ´lung cancer´ but also go further in subtyping such as ´small cell lung cancer´ and ´non-small cell lung cancer´. A nice and very informative site is Oncolink from the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center. Although I am not linking Cancer Center sites, oncolink has been a very prominent cancer web site with a lot of important information for patients and health professionals. If you want to interact with others there is a nice site called Cancershock. On this site you can post stories or anything regarding cancer. There is also a news section. The site is unique. |
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TREATMENTS The next topics
which I will cover are ´Treatment´ and ´Clinical
Drug Trials´. Treatment can be divided into two sections:
conventional and alternative treatments. First I will cover
websites reporting about conventional treatments. There are two relevant NCI sites Cancernet:
Treatment, which reports specifically about treatment for all
types of cancers and the CancerTrials site, which
lists and reports about clinical trials. Other web sites i
mentioned already such as Noah´s site and the ACS site. Many
sites reporting about treatments are specific for one type of
cancer. Fortunately there is a site, which has collected Links to
navigate the user to a specific treatment or cancer type which is
HealthlinkUSA. You
will find a search engine and many links. If you would like to ask
experts about a certain type of treatment or you just want to know,
then there is 411Cancer.com,
which is a consultant site. Chemotherapy is the major cancer
treatment. Although this site is not directly a site about cancer treatments it might be useful. It is a site with a messageboard for any kinds of problems including health problems. Check it out. |
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ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS I
would now like to introduce some sites reporting about
Alternative Treatments. At the beginning of this paragraph I would warn that there is no scientific evidence so far that alternative treatments can replace approved treatments such as surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. Some alternative treatments may support health care provided treatments but this should be done only after consulting your physician.
There is first of all this site Quackwatch Homepage, which investigates and warns not to be cheated by many so called ´Alternative Treatments´. Many treatments are listed and discussed. The next site called Life Extension: Cancer (Adjuvant) Treatment does not deny the regular treatments. It shows additional treatments, which are based on peer reviewed publications to help patients fight the disease in the long run. This site contains an article about COX-2 inhibitors. COX-2 has been shown to be an important enzyme upregulated in colon cancer. Several scientists are listed who belong to the advisory board. The next site Cancer Decisions.com: by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. is not just about alternative treatments but judging from the advices given more about how to live a healthy life eating certain foods, avoiding stress and toxic compounds in and around the house. Another site I found is about a chinese herbal product called Tian Xian. This product has obviously been tested in China. The producers claim that it is especially effective for late stages of cancer. Another product from Japan, a tea, called taheebo was also described to be effective against cancer. Read the article called Witch Doctors. Although I try to be neutral in my judgements, so far there are no miracles in curing cancer. My advice is to discuss any kind of treatment with your physician and NOT to decide by yourself. |
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| TUTORIALS To understand the molecular events which have occurred to change a normal into a cancer cell and to understand glossary it is necessary to have some basic knowledge in Cell and Molecular Biology. There are some sites, which specifically introduce the Biology to understand cancer. The University of Arizona has created a Tutorial on Cancer and cancer types. There is also an introduction to basic Cell Biology and explanation of vocabulary. Another nice tutorial deals with cancer in animals and explains several aspects of cancer such as cancer causing agents, therapies, diet and cancer, etc. However, some basic knowledge is required. I really like very much Ask Noah about Cancer, which is not only covering every aspect of cancer but has a very nice animated tutorial which is fun to learn from. I also found a Cancer tutorial, which does not use much explanation but gives in short form important statistics and data about cancer. |
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CANCER
MORTALITY/INCIDENCE/SURVIVAL The National
Cancer Institute has published data regarding cancer mortality rate
in the US from 1950-1994 in form of an Atlas. The Atlas On-Line -
contains everything, including databases, text, and graphics files.
County and state economic area (SEA) rates are available for each
cancer map. Tabulated data used to generate the atlas maps are also
available.
Another large database, the SEER Program is available from the National Cancer Institute regarding cancer incidence. This database is regularly updated. The SEER Program of the NCI is the most authoritative source of information on cancer incidence and survival in the United States. Information on more than 2.5 million cancer cases is included in the SEER database, and approximately 160,000 new cases are accessioned each year within the SEER catchment areas. SEER data, publications, and resources are available free of charge. |
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| CLINICAL TRIALS Related to treatments are clinical trials where certain treatments are tested in relation to effectiveness, dose response and toxic effects. I found this article Entering a clinical trial, which gives basic information about clinical trials very useful and is especially for patients. From both sites you will learn the basics of clinical trials. The NCI has a special web site for Cancer Trials. A site worthwile to mention is the Cancer Clinical Trials Directory by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This site contains lists of organizations with telephone numbers to get information about clinical trials for certain types of cancers. Another informative site is CyberMed. This site has a database connected to a search engine. You can find information about all the clinical trials for specific cancers in the different US states (US). I found an interesting article about clinical trials Cancerguide: The clinical trial system, which has been written by a patient who went through a trial and describes his view of clinical trial. |
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| CANCER AND NUTRITION It is now an established fact that there is a link between eating habits and the risc to develop cancer. I don´t want to go into the details, because the websites which I am going to introduce will definitely do a better job. If you want to know in one page about nutrition and cancer I recommend Texas Cancer Online Cancer Nutrition. Different kind of information regarding cancer and nutrition you can get from Carolyn Katzin´s Cancer Nutrition Center website. This is all about the connection of cancer and nutrition. There are lectures etc. and she also sells a handbook. A very interesting and extensive site on cancer and nutrition is the University of Nevada Cancer and Nutrition Support Project. This website is especially useful for patients with cancer and for patients who are on therapies and have certain symptoms like nausea and so on. The last site in this series, which I would like to mention is Nutrition.com, which presents individual articles about certain topics. Are you eating too much beef? If so check out this site and find out about your risc to get a certain cancer. |
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| NEWS This is an important topic. If you have worked yourself to this point and studied several of the pages, you probably can call yourself an expert. So now you want to know what is going on with respect to research and new information. Again the site to recommend is the American Cancer Society Homepage:, which I link a second time at this point, because the index page has news articles, which are updated every day: very impressive. The webmaster must be quite busy but is doing an excellent job for the community. If you want to search original literature by yourself then you are now mature for Entrez PubMed. Just punsh in keywords and you will find the latest articles on certain topics. And with this link I would like to finish the tour. I hope you found it useful. I could not mention all the other websites especially those on specific cancers, because this is a guide and not a search engine. You can find more links related to certain types of cancers on my site at Type of Cancer or on the many other sites you have visited. If you have comments or suggestions send e-mail to The Webmaster. |
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