ASCO Care and Treatment Recommendations for Patients
ASCO Care and Treatment Recommendations for Patients are easy-to-read summaries based on ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines that offer a patient-oriented view of the guidelines: providing background information, discussing the recommendations, explaining what those recommendations mean for patients, and providing a list of questions patients can ask their doctors for more information. The date on each guideline is when ASCO last published an update in response to new or revised scientific evidence. Each guideline listed here is considered the best available information on this topic to date.
All guides are available in text or in PDF format. Selected ASCO Care and Treatment Recommendations for Patients have been translated into Spanish and are available in Cancer.Net's En Español section.
ASCO welcomes feedback from the cancer community, including patients, about its clinical practice guideline development process, by providing feedback or submitting evidence on individual published guidelines. Learn more at this website.
Watch a patient education video led by Dr. Mark Kris explaining treatment guidelines.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) developed a new guideline on how to use biomarkers to guide the treatment of early-stage breast cancer. This guide for patients is based on ASCO’s most recent recommendations.
The information in this guide discusses the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SNB) in early stage breast cancer. SNB is a procedure where one or a few lymph nodes are removed from under the arm and examined for evidence of cancer.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) provides recommendations on the use of hormonal therapy for metastatic breast cancer. This guide for patients is based on the most recent recommendations.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) provides recommendations for follow-up care for women who have received treatment for breast cancer. This article combines recommendations updated in 2012 by ASCO and recommendations from ASCO and the American Cancer Society (ACS) developed in 2015.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) developed a new guideline on using biomarkers to guide the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. This guide for patients is based on ASCO’s most recent recommendations.
ASCO recently updated a clinical practice guideline about the use of white blood cell growth factors. This patient guide is based on ASCO's recommendations.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an endorsement of a guideline developed in 2014 by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). This guideline provides recommendations for using radiation therapy after surgery for endometrial cancer.
ASCO has updated a provisional clinical opinion recommending that patients with risk factors for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection or those who will be receiving cancer treatment likely to cause a reactivation of HBV be screened for HBV before beginning cancer treatment. A provisional clinical opinion offers direction to doctors and others who treat people with cancer after the publication or presentation of potentially practice-changing information.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an endorsement of a guideline developed in 2014 by the American Cancer Society. This guideline provides recommendations for follow-up care for men who have received treatment for prostate cancer.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) asks its medical experts to develop recommendations for specific areas of cancer care. In 2013, ASCO updated the clinical practice guideline about preventing and treating blood clots for people with cancer to reflect new research. These recommendations were reviewed again in 2015, and the latest research continues to support the previous recommendations. This guide for patients is based on ASCO's recommendations.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), along with Cancer Care Ontario, has developed recommendations on systemic, or full-body, treatments for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. This guide for patients and caregivers is based on ASCO recommendations.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) asks its medical experts to develop evidence-based recommendations about specific topics in cancer care. These recommendations are for the treatment of human epidermal receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast to areas either nearby the breast or to distant parts of the body. This guide for patients and caregivers is based on ASCO's recommendations.
To help doctors provide their patients with the highest-quality care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an endorsement of a guideline recently developed by Cancer Care Ontario. This guideline recommends tests and testing schedules for the follow-up care of patients who have completed treatment for colorectal cancer.
To help doctors provide the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) asks its medical experts to develop recommendations for specific areas of cancer care. This guideline was updated in 2013 to add new evidence about the benefits and risks of using medications (pills) as a way to lower the risk of breast cancer for women. In addition, a recommendation that doctors should discuss exemestane (Aromasin), as an alternative to tamoxifen and/or raloxifene, was added in this update. This guide is based on ASCO’s latest recommendations.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has issued a provisional clinical opinion on the use of PSA testing to screen for prostate cancer in men with no symptoms of the disease. A provisional clinical opinion offers direction to doctors and others after the publication or presentation of information that could change screening, testing, or treatment decisions.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) developed evidence-based recommendations on giving doses of chemotherapy that are based on a patient’s actual weight. This guide for patients is based on ASCO recommendations and is intended for people who are obese.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) developed evidence-based recommendations on the usefulness of laboratory tests (called assays) to find out if a cancer might be resistant or sensitive to a specific chemotherapy treatment before it is offered to a patient. In 2011, this guideline was reviewed due to new research; this research continued to support the 2004 recommendations. This guide for patients is based on ASCO’s most recent recommendations.
On February 9, 2011, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published the results of a randomized clinical trial showing that axillary dissection (the removal and analysis of the lymph nodes under the arm) for patients with breast cancer did not increase overall survival or lead to fewer recurrences (return of the cancer after treatment). All patients who participated in this study had a lumpectomy (removal of the tumor and a small cancer-free margin of tissue), radiation therapy, and a sentinel lymph node biopsy that showed cancer cells in one or two underarm lymph nodes.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) developed evidence-based recommendations about the use of epoetin (Epogen, Procrit) or darbepoetin (Aranesp) for chemotherapy-related anemia. In 2010, this guideline was updated to reflect results of recent clinical studies and a new analysis of combined data on the use of these drugs. It also summarizes the changes to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) approved prescribing recommendations. This guide for patients is based on the most recent ASCO and ASH recommendations.
To help doctors give their patients the best possible care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) developed evidence-based recommendations to improve the accuracy of testing for estrogen and progesterone receptors for breast cancer. This guide for patients is based on ASCO’s and CAP’s recommendations.