Decision Making Tools for Treatment

By Sharon Anderson MSW

1/2/26

One of LMSDR’s missions is to empower patients with education and information to help you make your best-informed decisions possible. We encourage you to use these resources for your own self-help and investigation.

1.      Google: Use Google for searching for information on topics such as specific drugs, sarcoma centers/doctors, finding research papers and trial results, specific treatments and general information on leiomyosarcoma. www.Google.com

2.      AI: This is good for explaining research findings and statistics, comparing chemos and treatments and a lot more. The more specific your question, the better the answer you will get in return. There are free AI services such as ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/

3.      Clinical Trials: Go to www.ClinicalTrials.gov  to find all active trials and do a simple search for leiomyosarcoma. Be sure to look at the locations and qualifications for enrollment. You can contact the trial’s contact person directly. You don’t have to go through your oncologist first, but should discuss it with them when considering to join a trial.

4.      PubMed: This national library has all published medical research. Do a search for leiomyosarcoma and the specific topic you want to know about. Then use AI to understand the research findings in lay terms. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

5.      QuackWatch: This is still the best resource for scientific investigations of myths, scams and snake oil cures for cancer. https://quackwatch.org/

6.      Leiomyosarcoma Support & Direct Research Foundation:  The website has LMS specific information on sarcoma centers, webinars on LMS topics, common treatments for LMS, financial resources, the LMS Boot Camp videos for the newly diagnosed, blog with long term survivor stories and much more. https://www.lmsdr.org/

1.      LMSeAlerts: This bi-monthly newsletter by LMSDR is chock-full of resources, new research for LMS, articles on coping and health, and listings of clinical trials. Subscribe at the bottom purple box on the website page: https://www.lmsdr.org/

2.      LMSDR Support Group: An additional valuable resource is LMSDR’s support group where you can also discuss experiences and compare notes with other LMS patients and caregivers. This group is moderated to ensure that information given is empirically sound. Because it is a confidential and private group, you must answer all questions to be accepted into the group, to ensure that you are an LMS patient or caregiver. https://www.lmsdr.org/