BLOCHLETTER2

Dear Fellow Cancer Patient (PAGE 2)

PDQ, written in understandable English, will give you a great deal of information
on your disease. It will tell you how it is staged and what the overall statistics on
your specific stage are. Remember, you are not a statistic. If you make it, your
chances are 100%, if you don't, they are 0%. There is no in between.
Trials are a wonderful thing. For purposes of discussion here, there are
fundamentally two types of trials. First, there are trials of experimental treatments
for generally difficult types of cancer. The procedure is to usually start off with
the state-of-the-art therapy. If that should fail, you are switched to the next line of
defense. If that fails, you then go to the third line, etc. After all standard therapies
have been exhausted, go for experimental therapies. Clinical trials are undertaken
when there is a strong possibility that the new approach will improve cancer
treatment. Each clinical trial offers you a chance to live. It works on the drawing
board. Maybe it can work with you. You have nothing to lose.

The second type of trial is a randomized or sometimes called a double blind trial.
This is where there is a difference between two or three types of treatments or
dosages or methods and it is desired to find out which is better. Absolutely no one
can say for sure that one is better than the other. So they ask individuals to
volunteer where they have no real preference and receive one of the methods,
possibly without even their knowledge of which they are receiving. Then the
results are monitored to find out which is better. For example half the participants
might receive a dose each month and the other half might receive 1/4 the dose
each week to see which group does better. Maybe half would receive their
treatment in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Either way, what you
are doing is possibly helping those who are to come after you and in no way
hurting yourself. Patients who participate in trials have the opportunity to receive
the most advanced care available - either the new treatment or the best standard
therapy. If the new treatment is successful, study patients are the first to benefit;
and they have the satisfaction of helping themselves and others.

Assuming your doctor is not a board certified oncologist (a doctor who
specializes only in the treatment of cancer), because very rarely does an
oncologist diagnose cancer, request that he call one in. Talk to this doctor and get
the same information. Again, be certain to write all answers. If you relate well to
this qualified physician and he believes he can successfully treat you, have
complete faith in him and do everything recommended.

If you do not relate well to this doctor or do not have faith in him or he does not
believe you can be successfully treated, go for a true second opinion. That means
leaving the comfort of your original doctor and hospital and going across the
street or across the city to a different medical system. The best you can do for
yourself would be a "multidisciplinary second opinion". This is by one of the
institutions given to you by 1-800-433-0464. There you will be allowed to sit
with your family and friends and hear your case discussed by independent
specialists from each type of cancer medicine. They will tell you everything about
your disease and answer any questions you or your family have openly and
honestly. You will hear all your options.

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