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Treatment guidelines are a part of medical practice that is becoming increasingly
essential. What these guidelines are is a formal statement of how best to choose treatments for
an individual patient. Here at ASCO what we do is, we have created a very formal process to
create these guidelines. We have a panel of staff that carefully go through the entire
medical literature to find every possible piece of information about how best to treat a certain
disease. They then compile that information, and they sit down with actual experts in
that field, doctors who treat patients with that disease, and then the doctors review
the data that the researchers have found. And between their experience, and what the medical
literature says is the best treatment, they come up with this very detailed plan of care.
So when most patients are treated now, doctors are constantly coming up with the best plan but
always comparing it to this pathway, this written document, on how best to take care of patients.
What usually happens in planning the care for a patient is a meeting between the patient and
and the doctor, and the doctor calling upon their knowledge in general and their skill
in treating people with that disease, and then trying to take the nuances of the individual
that is facing cancer, and trying to fit in how best to treat that person within
what is known in the medical literature about how best to treat that disease. So
guidelines are not exactly how you are treated. They are the knowledge base to
your doctor, who then comes up with a plan of care after they meet with you, and again try
to understand your special needs and also what what your goals for for care might be.
Evidence-based medicine is becoming a more and more important aspect of medical care. I think
all of us, when we go seek medical care, want to know that your doctor is using the best
information, the most up-to-date information, and the way that that is collected is by going to
the medical literature and seeing what, with scientific rigor, has been tested and found
to be true and found to be the best. So it is, in some ways, like a seal of approval that whatever
you would choose for the care of an individual is also what would be discovered if you went
and did a very extensive library investigation of what was known about that illness. Again it's it's
a reassurance I think, that what your doctors doing for you is the best in the latest care.
How do people learn about these guidelines. Well, many organizations that bring together cancer
experts and cancer experts in various fields of cancer care create these guidelines and the
American Society of Clinical Oncology is one group that has a very extensive experience, and
very extensive interest in creating these guidelines for the people that are members
of our group. What we try to do is to have the information available on our website,
Cancer.Net. I think that would be a very good place to start when you're trying to figure
out what care is right for you, based on what's known in the medical literature.
One of the great things about Cancer.Net is it's always created and constantly updated
by specialists in the field. And not just physicians, and not just medical oncologists,
people experienced in radiation oncology, and surgery, and also other aspects of care.
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