These are common feelings which have been expressed to me by patients with sarcoma whom I have seen in our multidisciplinary practice at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Internet technology offers access, but often at the expense of reliability and accuracy, which are often questionable for Internet-based sources.
Commercial interests abound, and it can be difficult to separate biased advertising from valid news.
Also, it is important to recognize that health care professionals who have not taken a special interest in sarcomas often feel out of their element when caring for a patient with sarcoma. Net was founded to help patients, their loved ones, and health care professionals access sarcoma-specific information that will be understandable, useful, fair, and unbiased. Net, we hope to develop a communication framework that will allow us all to tackle the problems of sarcomas, whether these problems are personal or professional, medical or surgical, biological or psychological. To do this in an unbiased way is a challenge. Sarcomas are rare diseases, occurring in the USA population in only 8,000 new patients each year.