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IxCenter Blog

 
•   General Searching   •   Searching Literature   •   Clinical Trials   •   Physician Info  
•   Hospital Info   •   Financial Resources   •   Support Services   •   Examples

Finding Information. Searching the Literature.

When you need more information than general sources can provide, you might want to look for specific research. Articles from research and medical journals are often good sources. These articles provide information on disease management and treatment outcomes.

It is always important to discuss this information with your doctor. He or she often will know best if particular studies apply to you. Be careful of old studies; their findings may be out of date.

Search for journal articles
You can find articles at the National Library of Medicine’s “PubMed”.

You may need to search PubMed using different terms. This will help you to identify the most relevant articles. For example, if you are looking for information on lung cancer, a general search using the term “lung cancer” may produce hundreds of results. To narrow your results, you might combine terms such as:
  • lung cancer and chemotherapy
  • results of lung cancer surgery
  • lung cancer and radiation
  • recurrent lung cancer
If you are looking for articles written about a specific therapy or drug, you might search using the name of your disease and the drug. For example, if you want to find articles about lung cancer treatments using the drug Iressa, you could search for “lung cancer and Iressa.” By narrowing your search terms, you will get the most relevant articles.

Get copies of the articles
Once you find relevant articles, you can order them online through the National Library of Medicine or from the journals. Prices range from $15 to $40.

If you live near a large university medical center, you may be able to use its library to get copies. Generally, you do not need to be a faculty member or student to use the library. But you should expect to pay for photocopies of the articles.

Find reports from physician conferences
One of the best sources of information is from annual conferences held by doctors in a specific field. You might use a search engine like Google to look for organizations’ conferences. Again, it may take you a few searches to identify the right source. For example, each year the American Society for Clinical Oncology holds a national conference to discuss the latest cancer treatments. You may be able to get a conference report by contacting the American Society for Clinical Oncology or looking on its Web site.

Learn about the treatments you should expect to receive
The National Institutes of Health also publishes consensus statements on the diagnosis and treatment of certain illnesses. These can help you know the standards of treatment for a condition that you should expect. The consensus statements are available online for free.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 
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