THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

Over the past few months new staff at the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) in Santa Monica, CA, have been focused on developing new information and new content for the prostate cancer patient community that is more patient oriented than research oriented. An example is PCF’s new, 72-page Prostate Cancer Patient Guide.

There are three important things that you might want to know about this new guide.

First, it is not just for the newly diagnosed patient. It includes sections dealing with

• You and your prostate cancer
• For the newly diagnosed patient
• Questions to ask your doctor after initial diagnosis
• Treatment options for localized and locally advanced prostate cancer
• Living with and after prostate cancer
• What to do if your PSA starts to rise
• Cutting edge developments in prostate cancer research
• Information for the sons and daughters of prostate cancer patients

Second, it is free. You can simply download a PDF copy over the internet if you click here, or you can ask for a printed copy to be sent to you if you click here.

But the thing that we feel may really make this new patient guide “different” is something we learned earlier today, which is this:

• PCF intends to update this guide frequently … not just every year, but ideally every quarter (if it needs to be updated).

For men with prostate cancer, knowing what is new and potentially useful is a critical part of being able to make the best decisions about how to manage one’s care over time. Most books and many booklets are out of date by they time they are available. PCF’s goal (like that of this InfoLink site) is now to try to make sure that patients are provided with really current information when they need it … information that enables and empowers you to ask better questions of your doctors.

Obviously, the PCF guide is not the only good guide out there. We still feel that the NCCN’s patient guideline on prostate cancer is valuable document (and it is also available for free), but it was last updated in 2016, and there have been some significant changes in the recommendations for management of prostate cancer since then which aren’t yet reflected in the NCCN’s patient guidance.

Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment | Tagged: education, guide, patient |