Genetech Website

A great website that allows you to search any cancer by type, provides information on clinical trials and the latest news on cancer. Also available are multimedia educational videos and conference downloads.
http://www.biooncology.com/index.html

Getting Personal The Shifting Landscape of Cancer Care

"Getting Personal: The Shifting Landscape of Cancer Care explores the evolving role of personalized medicine in how we look at cancer diagnosis and treatment. Personalized medicine uses information about a person's genes and proteins, called biomarkers, to prevent, diagnose and treat disease¹. Through personal patient stories, the program hopes to provide the cancer community with a resource to help them have more informed conversations about personalized medicine in oncology."
Watch at the following link:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid943071093001

NCCN No Longer Requires Imaging for Stage IIa Melanoma Patients

"March 14, 2011 (Hollywood, Florida) — The 2011 updated National Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCCN) guidelines for melanoma say that routine imaging is no longer required for stage IIa melanoma patients who have negative lymph nodes.
"We do not recommend a [computed tomography] scan for these patients. They don't have to have it. We have decided that there is no compromise in their care," committee chair Daniel G. Coit, MD, professor of medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, told Medscape Medical News here at the NCCN 16th Annual Conference.
"It's a category 2a recommendation, meaning that there was general agreement among the committee but very little data in the form of prospective randomized trials."
Stage IIa melanoma patients are those with melanomas between 2 and 4 mm thick and no lymph node involvement."
--Medscape

Chart to convert Gy to cGy in Radiation Treatment

http://www.aqua-calc.com/convert/radiation-absorbed-dose/gray-to-centigray

Environment and Breast Cancer

This website showcases a project looking into the environment and the development of breast cancer:
http://erbc.vassar.edu/

Advance Magazine

Here is a wonderful article on the new Class of Case requirements. Included in the article is a link to click on that will give you a quick reference diagram to follow when figuring out class of case:
http://health-information.advanceweb.com/Columns/Registry-Perspectives/A-Simple-Paradigm-for-Assigning-Class-of-Case.aspx

Cancer Treatment Website

This website is a wonderful resource for basic understanding of various types of cancer, cancer staging, and treatment. It also contains the latest news highlights concerning cancer.
http://www.cancertreatment.net/

Understand Lymphoma

Here is an excellent site that will increase your knowledge of lymphoma and aid in coding of this disease. The link below is to videos available at the site:
http://www.lymphomainfo.net/videos

Social Security Death Index Terms

Ever wonder if you can use "State Issued" "Last Residence" or "Last Benefit" to code the place of death? The answer to all three is NO.  None of these fields will tell you for certain the place of death.

This website will help in defining the different terms used.
http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ssdi/fields.html

News on the Net: Blood Test for Cancer

A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor's office.


http://www.aolhealth.com/2011/01/03/blood-test-detects-cancer/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk1%7C34372

Understanding Gamma Knife vs. Cyber Knife

Stereotactic radiosurgery

Radiation beams – high dose radiation is give to a specific target

Minimal dose to surrounding tissues

Idea is destruction of the tumor while sparing functioning of adjacent organs / tissues

Gamma Knife

Performs stereotactic radiosurgery for intracranial lesions

Used for both benign and malignant tumors

Head frame is required

Generally limited to a single dose

Cyber Knife

Capable of treating brain lesions

Can be used anywhere in the body, including structures that move with respiration

Does not require a head frame, patient is affixed to the table with a firm plastic mask

Common conditions for which SRS would be used:

Brain Mets

Acoustic neuroma/Vestibular schwannoma

Meningioma

Pituitary adenoma

Glioma or chondrosarcoma

Ocular melanoma

Nasopharynx carcinoma

ONCOLOGY ISSUES ACCC VOL 21 No 5