From Self-care for Healthy People to Self-management for Cancer Patients with Cancer Portals

Self-care to prevent cancer and self-management to cope with the disease are two discrete effective mechanismsfor improving of control and management of neoplasia. Both them have certain strategies and practices. Often thetwo are used interchangeably despite their different approaches. Strategies of self-care usually refer to preventionat different levels include primary, secondary and tertiary. In contrast, strategies of self-management are relatedto management and alleviation of unpleasant cancer-related symptoms and treatment-related side effects forimproving the quality of life of cancer survivors. Successful promoting of self-care and self-management strategiesneed people and survivor empowerment. Within this context, innovative approaches open a new window. In thispaper after a brief review of related strategies and practices, we provide an explanation of how cancer portalsmay play an important role in the empowerment process and what are key potentials for implementing of selfcareand self-management strategies for cancer.