Explore everything

The whole Cancer Explained library, chapter by chapter — every collection the site holds, with real counts and real pages, not just a link list. Jump to a chapter with the bar below, or scroll straight through.

What you'll find here

Everything on Cancer Explained is free, has no paywall and no ads, and is written in plain language from cited sources. Here is what the library holds today.

plain-language articles: 2,841 plain-language articles
answered questions: 462 answered questions
glossary terms: 382 glossary terms
report terms decoded: 151 report terms decoded
printable worksheets: 40 printable worksheets
verified support programs: 102 verified support programs
articles in Spanish: 459 articles in Spanish
languages: 106 languages

Counts update automatically whenever the library changes.

If something feels urgent right now

Call your cancer care team straight away if any of these start. Most teams have a 24-hour number — it is on your appointment paperwork, and they would far rather hear from you early. If someone cannot breathe, is unresponsive, or you think this is a life-threatening emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.

A fever of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher during treatment — especially chemotherapy — even if you feel okay otherwise
Signs of infection: shaking chills, redness or swelling around a wound or catheter, or new pain when urinating
Bleeding that will not stop, or bruising that appears suddenly and spreads
Severe shortness of breath or new trouble breathing
Chest pain or pressure

This is not a complete list, and it is not medical advice. Anything that worries you is reason enough to call — you do not need to justify it.

When is a side effect an emergency?What to have ready when you call Going to the emergency room

The first week after a diagnosis

The days right after a diagnosis are the hardest to think clearly in. These are the pages people open first — in roughly the order they need them.

Build a personal shortlist

Find information for your situation

Answer a few quick questions and we’ll personalize Cancer Explained for what matters most to you.

Start the Cancer Navigator

Educational guidance only — the Navigator recommends reading, never a diagnosis.

1. Who is this information for?
2. What cancer type or symptoms?
3. Where are you in your journey?
4. Your location (country)
5. What do you need help with most?
Get your personalized next steps

Essential guides to get you started

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Practical tools for the next step

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Watch: plain-language explainers

Short captioned videos on reports, screening, prevention and the claims people search.

View all videos

Every tool on the site

Interactive, private, and free. Nothing here needs an account, and what you type stays on your own device.

All tools

Cancer type guides, 258 guides

A plain-language guide for each diagnosis: what it is, how it's staged, how it's usually treated, and what to ask.

All cancer types

Jump straight to a diagnosis

Not sure what to search for?

Four different ways in, depending on what you already know. All of them land in the same library.

Every moment we write for, 26 moments in care

Cancer isn't one experience, it's dozens of separate moments — and each one has its own questions. Every page in the library is tagged to the moment it's written for.

Guided learning paths

Ordered reading, built for one situation at a time, so you're never staring at a search box wondering what comes next.

learning paths: 8 learning paths
steps in total: 43 steps in total
guided journeys: 10 guided journeys
journey modules: 104 journey modules

Body changes, one at a time, 31 guides

A calm page for each change people notice, explaining the common non-cancer causes first, how doctors think about persistence, and when it's worth a call.

All body changes

Look up a change you've noticed

Most symptoms turn out to have causes other than cancer. These pages are general education, not a diagnosis.

Screening and early detection, 71 screening guides

Tests that look for cancer before there are any symptoms — what each one involves and who it's for.

Browse by test

Diagnosis, staging and grading, 179 guides

Biopsies, scans, stages, grades, biomarkers. The vocabulary that arrives all at once, unpacked one term at a time.

Browse diagnosis guides

Your pathology report, decoded

Paste a phrase from a report — or browse the list — and get the plain meaning, what it does not prove, and what to ask about it.

report terms explained: 151 report terms explained
categories of terms: 6 categories of terms
in-depth term guides: 212 in-depth term guides

Common phrases people search for

The glossary, 382 terms

Every cancer word you're likely to meet, defined in one or two plain sentences — no circular definitions that send you looking up three more words.

Explained in diagrams

Some distinctions are easier to see than to read. Original diagrams for the confusions that come up most — each one with a full text description, and each one readable in black and white.

Diagrams may be reused with attribution to Cancer Explained.

Cancer medicines, explained, 42 medicine guides

A page for each of the drugs people search for by name: what it is in everyday words, which cancers it treats, how it's given, and the side effects worth reporting.

All medicines

Look up a medicine

Educational only. These pages never give dosing advice — that comes from your care team.

Side effects: what's common, what helps, what won't wait

Most side effects can be eased, and a few need a same-day call. Both kinds are spelled out clearly, treatment by treatment.

side-effect guides: 222 side-effect guides
treatments covered: 7 treatments covered

Find a specific side effect

How treatment is usually sequenced

Why surgery sometimes comes first and sometimes second, what "neoadjuvant" means, and where trials fit in.

What happens next, in detail

Research, plainly reported

New studies get loud headlines. These pages explain what a given study actually measured, in how many people, and what it does not yet show.

clinical trial guides: 38 clinical trial guides
trial hubs by cancer: 9 trial hubs by cancer

Cancer and daily life, 95 everyday questions

Work, driving, travel, visitors, sex, pets, holidays. The questions nobody puts on a clinic handout, answered honestly — including when the honest answer is "it depends, and here's what to ask".

All daily-life guides

Real questions people ask

Eating and nutrition

Eating well when nothing tastes right, food safety during low counts, and a clear-eyed look at the diets the internet promises will cure cancer.

nutrition guides: 37 nutrition guides
healthy living guides: 24 healthy living guides

Browse eating guides

Rest, sleep and comfort

For the nights that are hard. Quiet pages, a breathing pacer, and audio you can put on when reading is too much.

comfort pages: 6 comfort pages

When treatment ends, 136 survivorship guides

The part nobody warns you about. Follow-up schedules, late effects, scan anxiety, treatment summaries, and finding your footing again.

Browse survivorship guides

Children, teens and young adults

Written for the person actually reading it — a seven-year-old, a teenager, a parent of a child in treatment, or a 28-year-old who was told this doesn't happen at their age.

pages for kids and teens: 31 pages for kids and teens
words in the kids glossary: 64 words in the kids glossary
childhood cancer guides: 41 childhood cancer guides

Faith, meaning and spiritual care

For people whose faith is part of how they face this — what chaplains do, what different traditions teach about serious illness and treatment decisions, and where we're careful to say we can't answer for you.

We describe what traditions teach; we never tell you what to believe or what to decide.

Costs, insurance and paperwork, 158 practical guides

Cancer arrives with a second, parallel job: bills, codes, prior authorizations, appeals. These pages are about winning that job.

Browse practical guides

Medicare and cancer

What Medicare covers during cancer, what it leaves you paying, how Original Medicare and Advantage differ when you're in treatment, and how to appeal.

General education about how coverage works — not advice about your plan. SHIP counseling is free and impartial.

Real help, checked by hand

Helplines, rides to treatment, lodging near a hospital, wigs, childcare, copay foundations. Every listing is verified by us and dated, so you know when it was last confirmed.

verified programs: 102 verified programs
kinds of help: 15 kinds of help
countries covered: 2 countries covered

Print it and take it with you

One-page worksheets designed to be filled in with a pen in a waiting room: question lists, symptom logs, medication trackers, bill logs.

printable worksheets: 40 printable worksheets
downloadable packs: 45 downloadable packs
NCI booklets in the library: 14 NCI booklets in the library

Check what you understood

Short, kind quizzes at the end of the guides — the point is to catch the thing you half-understood before you're sitting in front of an oncologist.

quizzes: 1,099 quizzes
quiz questions: 3,565 quiz questions
flashcards: 22,212 flashcards
flashcard topics: 26 flashcard topics

Learn it as a game

Short lessons with progress, streaks and badges, built from the same sourced articles as the rest of the site. Nothing here diagnoses anyone.

lessons: 12 lessons
questions: 74 questions

Claims, myths and things your cousin sent you

We take the claim seriously, show what the evidence actually says, say plainly where it's uncertain, and explain why the claim spreads. Sometimes the answer is "partly true".

claims checked: 72 claims checked
guides on what causes cancer: 103 guides on what causes cancer

Claims we've looked at

The newsroom

Cancer news written for people who have cancer, not for clicks — what a study, approval or public diagnosis actually means for the person reading it.

published stories: 701 published stories
sections: 9 sections
collections: 5 collections

Cancer on screen, and in public life

What films and television get right about cancer and where they take licence — and what the public diagnoses people remember can teach the rest of us about screening and risk.

films and shows covered: 101 films and shows covered
public figures: 8 public figures

Titles we've covered

We never invent quotes or medical details about real people. Everything traces to what was publicly stated.

Cancer around the world

Where cancer is rising and falling, which cancers are most common in which regions, and how much of the global burden is preventable.

Cancer Explained en español

Not a machine translation of the English site — a full Spanish section with its own guides, its own report decoder, and its own question builder.

artículos en español: 459 artículos en español
more languages with guides: 11 more languages with guides
translated guides: 227 translated guides

More than a hundred languages

Some languages have fully translated guides. The rest have a hub page that points to trusted cancer information in that language, because pointing somewhere good beats an unreviewed machine translation.

languages with a page: 106 languages with a page
with translated guides: 11 with translated guides

Built to be usable when you're exhausted

Read it aloud, print it, use it with no signal in an infusion suite, or turn the text up without the layout falling apart. None of it requires an account.

For clinicians, navigators and educators

If you hand information to patients for a living: what's reusable, how it's sourced, what review it has actually had, and how to tell us when we're wrong.

How this is made, and where we stop

Content is AI-assisted and source-verified, then put through automated safety, plain-language and duplication checks. We say exactly what review each page has had — and we never call a citation check a medical review.

This site does not diagnose, recommend treatment, estimate prognosis, or provide emergency triage.

Thousands more questions, answered, 462 answered questions

Every question here is one a real person searched for. Each answer is short, sourced, and honest about what varies from person to person.

Ways to help, including free ones

Donations keep this free with no ads and no paywall. But sharing a page with someone who needs it costs nothing and helps just as much.

free cards to send: 50 free cards to send
card collections: 12 card collections
campaigns: 2 campaigns