Web Site Makes Searching for Specific Patient Cases Easier

Michael O'Leary
NexCura, Inc.

MEDLINE^® is great for searching oncology literature on a global scale, but for a quick way to search literature applicable to a specific patient case, try the NexProfiler™ Treatment Option Tools for Cancer found at www.cancerfacts.com.

At the cancerfacts.com home page, you can choose between two versions of the tools: Click on the Patient and Caregivers tab at the top for patient education or on Healthcare Professionals for literature searching by patient characteristics. You can use the patient tools to learn about treatment options for patients with cancer based on specific clinical characteristics, or you can use the professional tools to search a selected database of clinical literature based on those characteristics.

For either tool, click on the particular cancer in which you are interested and create an account with an e-mail address and zip code. Once you create an account for one cancer, you can use the same account for any cancer within the tool type (professional or patient), but you must have a different account to use the patient tool for breast cancer and the professional tool for breast cancer, for example.

In the patient tool, enter the clinical characteristics of your patient and then view treatment options and outcomes based on the peer-reviewed clinical research. The information provided can be used to discuss appropriate treatment options and help patients to understand treatments, side effects, and questions they might not otherwise think to ask.

In the professional tool, you can create a virtual case model search by answering the questions regarding the patient's age, stage, test results, etc. When you click on submit, you will be presented with a list of peer-reviewed clinical literature citations relevant to your case.

Click on one of the citations and you will get a useful summary of the article that shows the study design and whether it was a meta-analysis, randomized, multi-center, or single site as well as a brief summary of the study question, methods, results, and conclusions.

The articles presented in both tools are reviewed and selected by the experts on the cancerfacts.com medical rditorial boards as representing the articles that contributed substantially to establishing the standard of care for a patient with the specific patient characteristics you've entered.

You can also perform "what-if" searches by changing your input parameters to see how the literature results or treatment options change. The NexCura extensive clinical databases are continually updated as new research is published, so you can be confident that you're accessing the current and relevant data.