About NuDavid
A navigation tool for people facing colon or rectal cancer, and for the people helping them.
The problem it addresses
A colorectal cancer diagnosis arrives as a pile of unfamiliar vocabulary, a referral or two, and no map. The information you need is public and mostly free, spread across the National Cancer Institute, a federal trials registry, hospital price disclosures, and a dozen assistance programs, each with its own format and none of which talk to each other. People lose weeks to that fragmentation, and those are weeks spent on logistics rather than on treatment.
What it actually does
You answer a few multiple-choice questions about your diagnosis, your location, and what you need help with. From that, NuDavid narrows the 73 NCI-designated cancer centers to the ones you could realistically reach, searches the federal registry for trials currently recruiting in your area, lays out which treatment categories apply and what to ask about each, points you at the financial programs that exist, and drafts the messages you would otherwise have to compose yourself at the worst possible time.
Colon and rectal cancer are not the same thing
They get grouped together, including in the word colorectal, but rectal cancer sits in a confined space near nerves and the pelvic floor. Radiation plays a much larger role, the order of treatment matters more, and surgical experience is more consequential. NuDavid keeps them separate throughout for that reason.
What it will not do
It will not tell you which treatment to have, calculate how long you can safely wait, rank doctors, predict survival, or decide that you qualify for a trial. Those judgements need your complete records and a clinician who is accountable for them. NuDavid narrows the field and prepares the conversation. Your team makes the decisions.
Its current state
The cancer center directory, the source links, and the trial search are live and real. The educational summaries are written from NCI patient material and have not been through independent clinical review, which is the main thing still outstanding. Your answers live in your own browser because there is no patient database here, and building one responsibly requires privacy, security, and regulatory work that has not been done.
Start