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CLICKS & MISSES By Janet Rae-Dupree February 4, 2000


Braving Cancer with Medicine -- and a Mouse
From survival rates to new therapies, Oncology.com offers the most complete online cancer news for patients. More features would make it top-notch

"You have cancer." Few words can be more frightening to hear from one's doctor, and most patients don't hear or remember much of anything the doctor says after those first three words are uttered. It's only later, in the quiet of the long night at home that follows, that the questions begin to pour out: How bad can this be? What can be done? How long will treatment last? What is involved? What are the side effects? Will I live? Am I alone? And that's when patients turn to the Internet -- often to the consternation of those same doctors who tried so hard to explain things to them earlier in the day.

That's where Oncology.com comes in. With a thick library of content reviewed for accuracy by medical professionals at hospitals such as the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, Johns Hopkins, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University, Oncology.com can justifiably lay claim to being the most complete, up-to-date source of online cancer news and information for patients. It's when the site, backed by technology titans like Paul Allen and cancer survivor Andrew Grove, also claims to be the online medium of choice for health-care professionals and the entire cancer community that the claim might get a little murky. Oncology.com is trying too hard to be everything to everyone -- professionals as well as patients -- and it ends up serving neither group as well as a site dedicated to one or the other could.

To be sure, Oncology.com is a comprehensive site. By using an ever-present pull-down menu in the upper right-hand corner, registered users can jump at any time to a thorough overview of every major type of cancer. The stats are all there -- mortality rates, five-year survival rates, common treatments and, sometimes, links to information about alternative and experimental therapies. But the clinical tone of the site's content, which is edited by medical professionals, can leave lay patients feeling as if they've just been handed a pamphlet at the doctor's office and told not to ask too many questions.
 

There's no "Ask the Experts," and graphics are decidedly scant. But each of the major cancers is described in clear, thorough detail
 

Not that lay people could ask many questions at Oncology.com if they wanted to. There is no "Ask the Experts" function here. Not only that, but most of Oncology.com's 51 carefully selected public-discussion areas -- purportedly places where both patients and medical professionals can carry on freewheeling, take-off-the-lab-coat-and-sit-a-spell electronic conversations -- are virtual ghost towns. The most popular bulletin boards -- for discussion of breast cancer, colon cancer, and "My Cancer Story" -- each have recorded only 20 messages since November. Most of the subject areas, including those for such common ailments as thyroid cancer and kidney cancer, have generated not a peep from anyone. Not even a site administrator.

Oncology.com also suffers from a disturbing lack of imagination. Not a single colorful graphic, animated or otherwise, graces its Web pages. There are no audio files, no video files, and no real-time chats taking place. To visit Oncology.com is to surf through the Web of yesteryear, where text was king and multimedia was a distant dream. It's a shame, too, because patients just entering the nightmare world of cancer could benefit from explanatory graphics about such things as tumor growth, metastases (when cancer spreads to other parts of the body), and the impact of chemotherapy on both overall health and the cancer itself. In a lot of cases, the site's graphics are just tricks with no real purpose. Oncology.com missed a chance to put this technology to real use.

ONLINE DIARY. But Oncology.com has myriad saving graces. Each of the major cancers is described in clear, thorough detail, including symptoms, diagnostic tests, and recommended treatments. Introductory articles such as "What is Acupuncture?" guide patients through the benefits and drawbacks of common alternative treatments. Patients can keep a personal cancer diary online and keep track of medical appointments and other personal "events." This lets people access their information when they're not at their own PC -- when they're borrowing a computer in a hospital library, for instance. Users can read articles right away or move them to a personal file for reading later. It's at least a start toward the kind of flexibility people in crisis need.
 

Patients will find stories that inspire hope, but also a few lapses into intimidating medical-speak
 

The site's content has many more pluses than minuses. Its numerous features about cancer survivors are an inspiration and a pleasure to read. For example, the recent "Young Mom Battles Lung Cancer Online" tells the story of a 38-year-old woman, once given a few months to live, who has been in remission for two years after experimental surgery: If her story doesn't give other patients hope, nothing can. And Oncology.com's news sections are second-to-none. If there is a medical conference where the word "cancer" is uttered even once, Oncology.com is likely to provide comprehensive and engaging coverage of it. The site lists scores of upcoming medical symposiums and provides links to most of the major medical journals published today (although public access to those journals once you've surfed over to them is spotty at best).

The weak spots? Oncology.com claims to have an immense database of information about thousands of drugs, but none of the links to specific drugs worked during my visit. Occasionally, the site lapses from its friendly, explanatory tone into somewhat intimidating medical-speak. Several lines in a question-and-answer piece with Dr. Harmon Eyre, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, left me scratching my head, including this pithy quote: "A lot of people in the early stages of CML are in complete remission in the phase I trial." Readers could use a few explanatory pointers on that one. He means that some patients with an especially aggressive type of leukemia have gone into remission after being treated with a therapy that is in the early stages of being tested. Saying things in English isn't so hard -- and it's part of this site's stated mission.

Oncology.com should be praised for clearing out the hype and misinformation that surrounds its intimidating subject. Now it needs to build on the solid foundation it has laid.



Rae-Dupree covers technology for Business Week in Silicon Valley.


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Clicks & Misses


WEB POINTERS
 Read our review, then try the sites:
Oncology.com
American Cancer Society



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