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A guide to the world's best and most popular English-language cancer websites for information and support
For those whose lives have been touched by cancer, and for their partners, friends, relatives, caregivers and health providers.
This website is designed for one central purpose - to enable you to quickly find the world's best English-language cancer-related websites for your particular needs.
When looking for cancer information and support, it's a wise strategy to start at the top, by going to the biggest and most popular sites first, and finding out what they have to offer. Then you can explore for other sites if you want, by finding links on the biggest sites, or by using the search engines eg Google.
"Best websites" here means the sites where you are most likely to find the information you seek, the answers to your questions, the support you may need. Knowledge is power and support is strength they say, and these are the sites where you are most likely to find them.
I have included the best websites for cancer forums (also called message or bulletin or discussion boards) for each kind of cancer. Cancer forums are a great resource on the internet for sharing information and getting and giving support, but there are some hazards too. If you are not an experienced user of cancer forums, I recommend you read Important Information About Cancer Forums (it's at the bottom of this page) - it will help you stay safe while using the forums.
For those living in Australia, there is a section on Australian websites on the webpages for each cancer type.
Most links open in a new window, so to return to this page simply minimise or close the new window.
This website contains the same content as my website www.cancergen.com.
Now, let's get straight into action. Simply look at the list below, and click on whichever item most closely matches what you are looking for.
The five most frequently occurring cancers
Cancers in alphabetical order
Coverage to date - the 25 most frequently occurring cancer types
If the cancer type you are searching for does not appear on this list, go to this webpage Other cancer types.
Blood cancer websites (see individual types)
Lymphoma - Hodgkin disease websites
Lymphoma - Non-Hodgkin websites
Myelomas (multiple and other) websites
Young adults with cancer websites
Other categories
Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer reading - gives links to easy-to-understand articles on hereditary breast cancers and hereditary ovarian cancers and genetic testing
Guides to nutrition and excerciseBest advice on how to use the internet for finding information on cancer and how to determine if that information is reliable.
Cancer statistics concerns? - advice on interpreting and using cancer statistics as they relate to you - particularly valuable reading if you are apprehensive about statistics you've red on the internet or you are contemplating a worrying prognosis.
More internet resources
IF YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER WEBSITES YOU THINK SHOULD BE MENTIONED ON THIS WEBSITE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AT
everest@bestcancersites.com
Ed Everest, Adelaide, Australia, 17th October 2007.
Important Information About Cancer Forums
Interactive support on the internet for people involved with cancer is only a few years old and is currently a rapidly developing field of human endeavour. There are still only a relatively small number of good forums with substantial numbers of users at present, so choosing the best ones for your particular needs is going to be a relatively simple task.
A point to consider when looking for good forums is how many people are participating in a particular forum. The more people who are participating, the more people you will find with similar concerns and needs to your own, and the more people you will find who will value any support you can give them.
Most of the forums I have given links to appear to be either well moderated or they remove any offensive material as soon as they find it, although you will probably come across a few posts you think should not be there, such as disguised ads for various products.
A very important aspect I do need to mention is that the principle of ‘user beware’ applies on the cancer forums as it does in many other areas of the internet. On the forums and chat rooms people are generally free to post whatever views, opinions and recommendations they like about such matters as the significance of symptoms, the value of various treatments, side effects of treatments, and alternative treatments and products they may have heard about or used. There are no teams of medical experts sifting through the posts on the forums and assessing what is reliable information and what is not.
In short, there are no guardian angels protecting us from misinformation on the internet so we must be our own guardian angels, and carefully assess any information or advice we find on the forums before acting on it. The American Cancer Society has a very good information page giving advice on how to use the internet for finding information on cancer, and how to determine if that information is reliable. The direct link to it is Cancer Information on the Internet.
On some of the cancer forums you will find plenty of discussion about alternative treatments (ones that are outside the boundaries of mainstream medicine). Whatever your views on alternative treatments are, I recommend you read the Quackwatch website article “A Special Message for Cancer Patients Seeking "Alternative" treatments”" - it's at www.quackwatch.org/00AboutQuackwatch/altseek.html, or you can find the link on their home page at www.quackwatch.org. It alerts us to the fact that there are some fraudulent cancer treatments out there (and some well-meaning but useless ones) and it details many of them. There’s also a section outlining ways we can spot manipulation and fraud in the promotional material for some of the alternative treatments.
You may encounter statistics which can be a bit unnerving for a while, and you may encounter posts you find distressing. If you are new to cancer forums and mailing lists I recommend you test the waters first - go to a forum, or a mailing list archive, relating to a cancer type you are not involved with, and read some of the posts, to get a feel for whether forums and mailing lists are for you.
If you decide to join in a forum or chat room, you need to register, but that's usually quick and easy. It’s worth-while giving some thought to your choise of username. It’s the name your new friends on the internet will come to know you by, so you want a name that you like, that you feel is a good representation of you. It’s a chance to do what you couldn’t do when you were born - give yourself your own chosen name! And don't forget to give your username an upper-case first letter if that’s what you want.
Wow - that's a lotta websites! Time for a brief snooze.
