Thursday, June 21, 2018

Patient Friendly - NCCN new guideline for liver, gallbladder, and bile duct cancers

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a not-for-profit alliance of 25 of the world's leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education, is dedicated to improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of cancer care so that patients can live better lives. The intent of the NCCN Guidelines is to assist in the decision-making process of individuals involved in cancer care-including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, payers, patients, and their families-with the ultimate goal of advancing patient care in the fight against cancer.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has released a new guideline for liver, gallbladder, and bile duct cancers to assist patients in understanding their treatment decisions.

The new edition of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients reformats the evidence-based treatment recommendations from the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines and creates a patient-friendly version.

These step-by-step guides to the latest advances in cancer care, feature:
Questions to ask your doctors
Patient-friendly illustrations
Glossaries of terms and acronyms

"An essential element of patient empowerment is accessible, actionable, high-quality information," said Donna R Cryer, JD, President & CEO, Global Liver Institute, in a press release (June 19, 2018). The Institute provided sponsorship for the new guidelines for patients. "The Global Liver Institute is proud to work with NCCN to provide this information to support liver and bile duct cancer patients and their families in the hope that together we can make the cancer journey easier and more successful."

Incidence and deaths related to liver cancer are increasing globally, which correlates with rising rates of hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections, the latter of which is often a precursor to liver cancer. Additionally, metabolic disorders are associated with an increased risk of liver cancer. There are many treatment options for patients with hepatobiliary cancer to consider, including liver transplantation, surgery, radiation, ablation or embolization, and drug therapy.

"When people are diagnosed with liver cancer, they hope their doctor will be able to present them with a definitive best course of action, but there are often multiple treatments from which to choose,” explained Al B Benson III, MD, Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University. Dr Benson is the chair of the NCCN guidelines panel for hepatobiliary cancers. “The best choice for any given individual has to take into account their disease status, symptoms, lab results, and, of course, personal preferences.”

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