LATESTBreastCancer: How it's organized.

This week and probably into next, I'll give an overview of the LATESTBreastCancer Web site and also provide tips for users.

There are two main sections of the site: 1) Treatments and 2) News and Journals (note: News and Journals is only available to subscribers). Today, let's look at Treatments.

Basic organization: The Treatments section is organized kind of like a typical shopping site, with departments, sub-departments and then specific treatment options (think products). For example, "Drugs" is a department. It contains five sub-departments, including "Hormonal drugs." There you'll find a list of specific options like tamoxifen, Arimidex, Femara, etc...

Arranged left to right along a typical treatment flow: Every patient's treatment is different. But often the process starts with Screening (maybe also Risk Assessment), which leads to Biopsy and Diagnosis, Surgery, Radiation therapy, Chemotherapy and then Drug therapy. There's also, very importantly, post-treatment surveillance. On the Treatment page, these topics are arranged from left to right. Two "departments" don't fit as well into this flow since they can be relevant to anyone: Complementary Therapies and Lifestyle (including exercise and nutrition).

Researching treatment options: When you're in a sub-department like Hormonal Drugs, you'll be looking at a list of treatment options. Click on any item in the list (for example, Arimidex) to view a treatment option page. This page enables you to do methodical, thorough research by accessing all of the most recent high quality Web links about that treatment option organized into tabs and listed in reverse chronological order.

Next: Using the Treatment section as a subscriber vs. a non-subscriber.