Are You Hesitant to Participate in Trials Because of Data Privacy?
Find out how your personal health data is protected in clinical trials.
Modernizing Clinical Trials
Clinical trial modernization is needed. Read about how clinical trial diversity, decentralization, and real-world data is helping to improve the clinical trial process.
Big Data & Cancer Research
Cancer researchers have the ability to collect more data on patients in clinical trials than ever before. Analyzing these “big data” sets could provide clues that may help scientists figure out which treatments will work best for a specific cancer patient based on the type of cancer they have and the mutations that are helping it grow.
Below are a collection of articles that can help you learn more about the role big data is expected to play in the next decade of cancer research. We’ve also included a link to the Metastatic Breast Cancer Project, a big data research project to speed the development of new cancer treatments that every person with metastatic breast cancer in the U.S. can join.
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- National Cancer Institute: NCI: Bioinformatics, Big Data, and Cancer
- Cancer Today: Big Data: Sharing Information to Improve Care
- Nature Communications: Analyzing Cell Lines Used to Study Metastatic Breast Cancer
- Journal of Clinical Oncology: Susan G. Komen Big Data for Breast Cancer Initiative: How Patient Advocacy Organizations Can Facilitate Using Big Data to Improve Patient Outcomes
- Susan G. Komen: Big Data for Breast Cancer (BD4BC)
- Metastatic Breast Cancer Project: Connecting MBC patients with scientists to study cancer’s genetic and molecular causes
Evidence-Based Information on Herbs and Supplements
Herbs and supplements are widely advertised as beneficial to cancer patients. But how do you know which ones are safe?
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- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: About Herbs, Botanicals and Other Products
- Cancer.Net: Dietary and Herbal Products
- Harvard Medical School and Boston Medical Library: Harvard’s Integrative Medicine Online Database
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: Natural Doesn’t Necessarily Mean safer, or Better
- Unite for HER: Funding and delivering integrative and supportive therapies to help empower and restore your body, mind, and soul
Your Tumor and Experience Could Lead to New Treatments
Metastatic breast cancer patients, advocates, and researchers have been working together to develop registries and databases where patients can share information about their tumors as well as their treatments, side effects, and quality of life to help advance metastatic breast cancer research.
MBC Connect is a free, interactive, web and mobile-friendly patient registry. By using the app you help to create a real-time database that can improve our understanding and treatment of metastatic breast cancer. The app is available in English and Spanish.
The MBC Project collects patient data along with blood and tumor samples. Scientists believe studying the DNA in the tumor samples patients provide will help them develop new and better treatments for metastatic breast cancer.
The MBC Project is part of Count Me In, which aims to enroll more than 100,000 patients living with all major cancer types, as well as rare cancers.
You can read more about these program in the Time magazine article below.