Ed Everest's Guide to the World's Best Cancer Websites
The home page address is www.bestcancersites.comTHE BEST THYROID CANCER WEBSITES
The address of this page is www.bestcancersites.com/thyroidThis is a summary of the best websites I could find around the world for thyroid cancer, both for general information (symptoms, treatment options, research, etc) and for forums (message or discussion boards) and other kinds of support. And for those living in Australia there is information about Australian websites here.
ThyCa - the Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association - runs an excellent website for thyroid cancer information and support at www.thyca.org. It’s the website I recommend you visit first.
In their own words “This website has been created and is maintained by thyroid cancer survivors. Since October 1995, we have been developing a network of services that link thyroid cancer survivors and health care professionals around the world.”
“This site maintains current information about thyroid cancer and support services available to people at any stage of testing, treatment, or lifelong monitoring for thyroid cancer, as well as their caregivers. This site also serves as a resource for anyone interested in thyroid cancer survivors' issues.”On their website you can find a range of information about thyroid cancer and its treatment, and several sources of support. The website includes a detailed list of links to websites relating to thyroid cancer with brief notes on each one, and it’s well worth browsing through this list if you are looking for additional information or support. Look for 'Links' on their home page or try this direct link www.thyca.org/links.htm.
Another good website with a lot of information on thyroid cancer and its treatments is Thyroid-Cancer.net - the website of the Johns Hopkins Thyroid Tumor Center. It’s address is www.thyroid-cancer.net.
If you are looking for a detailed and reliable source of information on thyroid cancer and its treatment, probably the best place to go is the website of the National Cancer Institute (USA) at www.cancer.gov . The section devoted to thyroid cancer gives an easy to read and easy to understand description of what thyroid cancers are, how they are diagnosed, treatment options, descriptions of treatments, and more.
To locate the sections on thyroid cancers, go to this direct link www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/thyroid or go to their home page and click on the link 'Thyroid Cancer' under the heading 'Common Cancer Types'.
The American Cancer Society, a voluntary organisation, runs the most comprehensive website on cancer and cancer-related matters on the net. Their address is www.cancer.org . There's information about thyroid cancer on their website but because it's such a large site you need to search it out. On their home page find and click on the link 'Choose a cancer topic' and choose 'Thyroid Cancer' from the list that displays, and click on Go.
They have many other resources too for those involved with cancer so it's well worth browsing their site for additional information and support that may be relevant to your situation.
If you want to delve deeper into any aspect of cancer, a good source of information is Medlineplus at www.medlineplus.gov. It's a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health and it’s a big well-organised and easily searchable site. The link to the section on cancers is www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cancers.html and the link to their section on thyroid cancer is www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/thyroidcancer.html.
Forums (Message Boards) and Mailing Lists
The American Cancer Society runs a forum or message board called Thyroid Cancer at www.acscsn.org/Forum/Discussion/?msgrid=36. It was only receiving a few posts a month when I checked on 7th February 2006 so it was not particularly active. They have other forums you may find useful - the link to their forums index page is forums index.
HealthBoards.com (home page www.healthboards.com) run a very active forum called Thyroid Disorders, so that's the forum I suggest trying first if you want responses to your posts.
ThyCa (mentioned at the top of this page) don't run a forum but they do run several email support groups (mailing lists) - look for the link to 'ThyCa Support Groups' on their home page, or try this link www.thyca.org/support.htm.
They say “ThyCa offers several email discussion lists (a general list and various specialty lists), where people share thyroid cancer information and support via email messages. Subscribing puts you instantly in touch with many, many people worldwide, all dealing with thyroid cancer. The lists are free, simple to manage and participate in, and operate through Yahoo! Groups. You can choose to receive individual email messages or daily digests; a third option is receiving no email at all and visiting the list's website to read and respond to messages through the permanent list archive.”
The Association of Cancer Online Resources (ACOR) hosts a thyroid cancer mailing list called THYROID-ONC - The Thyroid Cancer Online Support Group - with 417 subscribers as at 4th February 2005. To find the list go to the ACOR website at www.acor.org and click on 'Mailing Lists Center' near the top of the page. It may also be worth searching through their index of mailing lists to look for any other lists that may be relevant to your situation.
Clinical guidelines for the treatment of thyroid cancer
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is “an alliance of 19 of the world's leading cancer centers, ... an authoritative source of information to help patients and health professionals make informed decisions about cancer care. Through the collective expertise of its member institutions, the NCCN develops, updates, and disseminates a complete library of clinical practice guidelines. These guidelines are the standard for clinical policy in oncology” - (quoted from their website). If you want to take a role in planning your course of treatment in consultation with your medical health providers then you may find these guidelines valuable.
The physician-friendly set of clinical guidelines for the treatment of thyroid cancer can be found by going to this webpage
www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/default.asp , and a patient-friendly version may in the future be prepared in collaboration with the American Cancer Society and a link to it posted here:
www.nccn.org/patients/patient_gls.aspOther websites
CancerBACUP at www.cancerbacup.org.uk "Welcome to CancerBACUP, Europe's leading cancer information service, with over 4,500 pages of up-to-date cancer information, practical advice and support for cancer patients, their families and carers."
Light of Life Foundation website at www.checkyourneck.com.
The Thyroid Foundation of Canada website at www.thyroid.ca (includes some information in French).
The Thyroid Foundation of America website AllThyroid.org.
Thyroid Federation International - "Thyroid Disease in a Global Perspective" at www.thyroid-fed.org. "Our main objective is to assist all those interested to start a thyroid patient organization in their country or locale." They include a list of participating organisations in various countries you may find useful.
Cancercare is a large USA-based organisation "that provides free, professional support services for anyone affected by cancer." On their website at www.cancercare.org you can find some information resources, advice on such matters as financial assistance, and counseling services (online, telephone and face-to-face). There are also some online support groups or forums.
The website RxList at www.rxlist.com - self-described as “The Internet Drug Index providing fast, reliable information to both the consumer and the medical professional” - has information about hundreds of medicinal drugs and also active forums or discussion boards on the more popular drugs as well as forums for discussing less popular drugs and alternative therapies. The link to their forums index page is www.rxlist.com/rxboard.htm.
If you have concerns about fertility in relation to cancer and its treatment, go to this page www.bestcancersites.com/fertility for links to websites with information and support on fertility issues.
There are links to lymphedema websites on this page www.bestcancersites.com/lymphedema (and you can use your back button to return here).
A good website for finding clinical trials relating to any type of cancer is the USA Government’s National Cancer Institute site at www.cancer.gov - go to their home page and click on the link Clinical Trials, or click on this direct link www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials.
There’s another USA Government website called ClinicalTrials.gov at www.clinicaltrials.gov where you can search for trials. “ClinicalTrials.gov offers up-to-date information for locating federally and privately supported clinical trials for a wide range of diseases and conditions” and “ClinicalTrials.gov currently contains approximately 12,600 clinical studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, other federal agencies, and private industry. Studies listed in the database are conducted in all 50 States and in over 100 countries. ClinicalTrials.gov receives over 4 million page views per month and hosts approximately 17,000 visitors daily.”
I suggest starting your search for clinical trials with the National Cancer Institute site at www.cancer.gov and then trying the ClinicalTrials.gov site. I don't know if ClinicalTrials.gov includes the same database as the NCI site but it doesn’t use the same search form so it might turn up something different anyway. Both sites include trials around the world as well as those in the USA.
You could also try the “American Cancer Society /EmergingMed Clinical Trials Matching Service ... This free Clinical Trial Matching and Referral Service is made available to American Cancer Society visitors through a collaboration with EmergingMed. ... Fill out one questionnaire and within seconds you'll know if your profile matches any clinical trials in our system. The EmergingMed database contains more than 3,000 clinical trials for treatment, prevention and early detection of cancer.” Look for the link to clinical trials on the home page of the American Cancer Society or try this direct link http://clinicaltrials.cancer.org .
NORD - the National Organisation for Rare Disorders - on their website at www.rarediseases.org has a database of rare disorders including many rare cancers. The database gives a list of alternative names for each disorder, some basic information about the disorder, and a list of organisations related to that disorder.
There are links to nutrition and excercise guidelines on this webpage nutrition and excercise guidelines.
For anyone considering trying an alternative treatment for cancer (one that is not mainstream medicine and scientifically demonstrated to be safe and beneficial) the website Quackwatch has a very good section on their site called “A Special Message for Cancer Patients Seeking "Alternative" Treatments”. It will help you decide whether an alternative treatment you are considering is safe and might be beneficial in some way, or whether it might be unsafe and/or fraudulent. The direct link is www.quackwatch.org/00AboutQuackwatch/altseek.html or you can find the link on their home page at www.quackwatch.org.
The American Cancer Society website has a valuable section called "Complementary and Alternative Therapies". It's buried deep in their website and difficult to find - there's no link to it from their home page. Try this direct link www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/ETO_5.asp?sitearea=ETO or else put the word alternative into the search window on the home page and look for a link to the section in the search results. If you're thinking of trying a specific alternative or complimentary treatment you've come across on the internet or elsewhere you may find information about it in this section.
Another website that discusses the subject of alternative treatments in some detail is the website of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at www.nccam.nih.gov.
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.
More suggestions please
If you know of any other good thyroid cancer websites large or small, or active forums (message or discussion boards) or mailing lists on thyroid cancer you would like to see added to this page, or you find any errors or broken links, please send me an email at
everest@bestcancersites.com.Ed Everest, Adelaide, Australia
Page updated 11th September 2006
Australian Thyroid Cancer Websites
There do not appear to be any websites based in Australia devoted to thyroid cancer.
There are annotated links to Australian general cancer websites on this webpage Australian general cancer websites (it opens in a new window). Please do check it out - you'll find websites listed there with a wide variety of information relevant to Australia (including lists of support groups and treatment centres) that you won't find on the websites described above.
More suggestions please
If you know of any other good thyroid cancer websites large or small, or active forums (message or discussion boards) or mailing lists on thyroid cancer you would like to see added to this page, or you find any errors or broken links, please send me an email at everest@bestcancersites.com.Ed Everest, Adelaide, Australia
Page updated 11th September 2006
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