April 7, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
Breast cancer patients are using a nonprofit’s mobile application to navigate the torrent of information available about the disease.
People who are diagnosed with breast cancer receive a pathology report, which describes the type of breast cancer they have based on factors such as the size of the tumor, where it’s located, and whether the disease has spread beyond the breast.
“Once a patient gets this kind of hairy report, they’re left to their own devices to really, truly understand what it means,” says Michele McLaughlin Zwiebel, director of programs and content at Breastcancer.org.
Patients who use the charity’s Breast Cancer Diagnosis Guide phone app answer a series of questions about their diagnosis and then receive articles and other information tailored for their needs. The application helps patients understand which breast cancer developments apply to their diagnosis and which don’t, says Ms. Zwiebel. “The media will say there’s this brand new game changer in the breast-cancer treatment arsenal, so everybody would go running to the doctors and say, ‘I want to take this,’” she says. “We’ve tried to remove some of that.”
For more information: Go to breastcancer.org.
