- Email: [email protected]
Rates and risks
Books Where on the web Classified
CancerBACUP – a great resource for patients and doctors www.cancerbacup.org.uk CancerBACUP is a registered UKbased charity. However, the website also provides links to information in many other countries worldwide. Launched in 1985, by a doctor with cancer, CancerBACUP aims “to help people live with cancer by providing information and emotional support for patients, their families and health professionals…”; this site certainly reinforces those goals. Although the site contains a lot of information, it is not difficult to find your way around., since is clearly signposted with icons on the homepage that take the user straight to the information they need. It has direct links to other cancer sites, where one can find useful, up-to-the-minute guidelines on the best and latest treatments for specific cancers – in the UK, Europe and from the National Cancer Institute in the USA. The CancerBACUP website is big – over 1500 pages, excluding the links to other sites. It includes the organisation’s complete range of booklets and factsheets; searchable databases of support groups, cancer organisations, and hospices; lists of
national resources and recommended reading; controversial cancer topics; and news. Quick links to free MEDLINE and Cancerlit searches, drug information, reliable websites, online journals, and international conferences will be particularly useful to health professionals. The sections on controversial cancer topics are written by doctors
how to order are easily found on the site, so why not make the most of this excellent resource? Other innovative features include a Personalised Online Cancer Information Service, designed to pinpoint information tailored to the individual, whether he or she is a patient or knows someone with cancer. If you fill in the online form,
for doctors. Each topic is succinctly but thoroughly reviewed, and comprehensively referenced. There are currently seven topics listed in this section, including clinical trials and cancer screening. Dissemination of all this information is obviously an important aim of CancerBACUP and you can obtain the whole website on a CD. Details of
you are sent a set of links to the information you need. General medical queries will be answered by a direct email link. This site can be summed up in one word – comprehensive. If you need information on cancer, or want to know what your patients are looking at, check out this website today!
Rates and risks
database. This is a large database, covering about a tenth of the population of the USA. The international cancer rates data come from the IARC (a division of the World Health Organization). The data are arranged by country and disease. Graphical presentation, in the form of tables and charts, is used extensively. Of particular interest are the changing survival patterns over time. A helpful introduction to this section covers some basic epidemiology and points out some of the difficulties involved in making international comparisons. The site also has a collection of essays on different aspects of risk factors for cancer. These essays appear to be well researched and are written by individuals who have published in the field. They are divided into two groups – risk factors for cancer and risks for major cancers at particular sites. Examples include viruses and cancer, anti-cancer drugs, ionising radiation, and hormones.
http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interfa ce/raterisk/index.html
Statistics hold a special fascination for oncologists and the NCI has produced an interesting website, which many will find useful. Hidden behind a deceptively simple front-end is a large amount of data on the causes, incidence and prevalence of cancer. There are two main sections to this site – rates and risks. The rates option takes you to a series of screens with data extracted from the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results) 62
Tina Patrick
Who would use this site? I think epidemiologists, practising oncologists, and oncology trainees will find it useful. It will also be helpful to medical students, especially given the current vogue for self-directed learning in medical education. I do have some criticisms, however. It is sometimes hard to know where you are within the site, and the information is too linear in places. Better use could be made of hypertext links, and a search facility would be a great advantage. Furthermore, the essays on aetiological factors are presented as large blocks of text, without any pictures. A universal criticism of material published on the web is that it is often not peer reviewed. No comment is made on whether the essays on this site have undergone peer review or not. However, I am sure that many of these shortcomings will be addressed as the site matures. These criticisms aside – this NCI site is well worth a visit. Michael Fay THE LANCET Oncology Vol 1 September 2000
For personal use only. Not to be reproduced without permission of The Lancet.
CancerBACUP – a great resource for patients and doctors www.cancerbacup.org.uk CancerBACUP is a registered UKbased charity. However, the website also provides links to information in many other countries worldwide. Launched in 1985, by a doctor with cancer, CancerBACUP aims “to help people live with cancer by providing information and emotional support for patients, their families and health professionals…”; this site certainly reinforces those goals. Although the site contains a lot of information, it is not difficult to find your way around., since is clearly signposted with icons on the homepage that take the user straight to the information they need. It has direct links to other cancer sites, where one can find useful, up-to-the-minute guidelines on the best and latest treatments for specific cancers – in the UK, Europe and from the National Cancer Institute in the USA. The CancerBACUP website is big – over 1500 pages, excluding the links to other sites. It includes the organisation’s complete range of booklets and factsheets; searchable databases of support groups, cancer organisations, and hospices; lists of
national resources and recommended reading; controversial cancer topics; and news. Quick links to free MEDLINE and Cancerlit searches, drug information, reliable websites, online journals, and international conferences will be particularly useful to health professionals. The sections on controversial cancer topics are written by doctors
how to order are easily found on the site, so why not make the most of this excellent resource? Other innovative features include a Personalised Online Cancer Information Service, designed to pinpoint information tailored to the individual, whether he or she is a patient or knows someone with cancer. If you fill in the online form,
for doctors. Each topic is succinctly but thoroughly reviewed, and comprehensively referenced. There are currently seven topics listed in this section, including clinical trials and cancer screening. Dissemination of all this information is obviously an important aim of CancerBACUP and you can obtain the whole website on a CD. Details of
you are sent a set of links to the information you need. General medical queries will be answered by a direct email link. This site can be summed up in one word – comprehensive. If you need information on cancer, or want to know what your patients are looking at, check out this website today!
Rates and risks
database. This is a large database, covering about a tenth of the population of the USA. The international cancer rates data come from the IARC (a division of the World Health Organization). The data are arranged by country and disease. Graphical presentation, in the form of tables and charts, is used extensively. Of particular interest are the changing survival patterns over time. A helpful introduction to this section covers some basic epidemiology and points out some of the difficulties involved in making international comparisons. The site also has a collection of essays on different aspects of risk factors for cancer. These essays appear to be well researched and are written by individuals who have published in the field. They are divided into two groups – risk factors for cancer and risks for major cancers at particular sites. Examples include viruses and cancer, anti-cancer drugs, ionising radiation, and hormones.
http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interfa ce/raterisk/index.html
Statistics hold a special fascination for oncologists and the NCI has produced an interesting website, which many will find useful. Hidden behind a deceptively simple front-end is a large amount of data on the causes, incidence and prevalence of cancer. There are two main sections to this site – rates and risks. The rates option takes you to a series of screens with data extracted from the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results) 62
Tina Patrick
Who would use this site? I think epidemiologists, practising oncologists, and oncology trainees will find it useful. It will also be helpful to medical students, especially given the current vogue for self-directed learning in medical education. I do have some criticisms, however. It is sometimes hard to know where you are within the site, and the information is too linear in places. Better use could be made of hypertext links, and a search facility would be a great advantage. Furthermore, the essays on aetiological factors are presented as large blocks of text, without any pictures. A universal criticism of material published on the web is that it is often not peer reviewed. No comment is made on whether the essays on this site have undergone peer review or not. However, I am sure that many of these shortcomings will be addressed as the site matures. These criticisms aside – this NCI site is well worth a visit. Michael Fay THE LANCET Oncology Vol 1 September 2000
For personal use only. Not to be reproduced without permission of The Lancet.