Monday, June 23, 2008

Ureteral cancer: case

Scenario

One of the GPs asks me for patient level information on the topic of ureteral cancer. One of his patients has been recently diagnosed and would like to have some information about it. Also he would like his patient to have some information about treatment options.

Resolution

There is a lot of information on urethral cancer but not a lot on ureteral cancer,* so I try a few places before finding a good overview on the BC Cancer Agency website.

BC Cancer agency > Patient/public info> Types of cancer > ureteral.

MedlinePlus has an entry in the encyclopedia: Cancer - renal pelvis or ureter.

Neither one goes into whole lot of detail about treatment options.

For that I find the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) PDQ®** on the subject through Onkolink. This can also be found on the NCI website of course, but Onkolink presents the information from the PDQ® in a way that is easier to navigate and read.

To get to the PDQ® though Oncolink: Oncolink > Types of Cancer > Urinary Tract Cancers > Urethral Cancer > NCI Resources.***

To get to it on NCI's website: NCI > A-Z list of cancers > S-Z > Ureter and Renal Pelvis, Transitional Cell Cancer

Last but certainly not least I Google ureteral cancer treatment options and find a great overview of ureteral cancer on the Fox Chase Cancer Center website which also discusses treatments at the various stages of the disease and the information is based on the NCI PDQ® as well.



* Click here for a definition of the two terms.

** What is PDQ®
?

*** To be perfectly honest this is the path as it appears on the Onkolink website. If you try to follow it it doesn't work. Urinary tract cancers does not appear on the list of cancers! But if you do a site search for ureter it will be the first hit on the list.

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