Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Preparing for your appointment
By Mayo Clinic staffIf you think you may have anal cancer, you're likely to start by first seeing your family doctor or a general practitioner. If your doctor thinks you could have anal cancer, you may be referred to a surgeon or a specialist who treats digestive diseases (gastroenterologist). Once a cancer diagnosis is made, you may also be referred to a doctor who specializes in treating cancer (oncologist).
Because appointments can be brief, and because there's often a lot of ground to cover, it's a good idea to be well prepared. Here's some information to help you get ready for your appointment, and what to expect from your doctor.
What you can do
- Be aware of any pre-appointment restrictions. At the time you make the appointment, be sure to ask if there's anything you need to do in advance, such as restrict your diet.
- Write down any symptoms you're experiencing, including any that may seem unrelated to the reason for which you scheduled the appointment.
- Write down key personal information, including any major stresses or recent life changes.
- Make a list of all medications, as well as any vitamins or supplements, that you're taking.
- Take a family member or friend along, if possible. Sometimes it can be difficult to absorb all the information provided during an appointment. Someone who accompanies you may remember something that you missed or forgot.
- Write down questions to ask your doctor.
Your time with your doctor is limited, so preparing a list of questions will help you make the most of your time together. List your questions from most important to least important in case time runs out. For anal cancer, some basic questions to ask your doctor include:
- What is the stage of my anal cancer?
- What other tests do I need?
- What are my treatment options?
- Is there one treatment that's best for my type and stage of cancer?
- What are the potential side effects for each treatment?
- Should I seek a second opinion? Can you give me names of specialists you recommend?
- Am I eligible for clinical trials?
- Are there any brochures or other printed material that I can take with me? What Web sites do you recommend?
- What will determine whether I should plan for a follow-up visit?
In addition to the questions that you've prepared to ask your doctor, don't hesitate to ask questions during your appointment at any time that you don't understand something.
- Complementary and alternative methods for cancer management. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_1_Introduction.asp. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Anal carcinoma. Fort Washington, Pa.: National Comprehensive Cancer Network. http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/anal.pdf. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Anal cancer treatment (PDQ) patient version. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/anal/patient/allpages/print. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- SEER stat fact sheets. Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results. http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/anus.html. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Malik U, et al. Cancer of the anal canal. In: Abeloff MD, et al. Abeloff's Clinical Oncology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2008:1557.
- Can anal cancer be prevented? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_Can_Anal_Cancer_be_prevented_47.asp?sitearea=. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
- Questions to ask the doctor. Cancer.Net. http://www.cancer.net/patient/Cancer+Types/Anal+Cancer. Accessed Nov. 7, 2008.
