Editorial standards

How we choose sources

We build each guide from material that has been through some form of expert review. In practice that means national clinical guidelines (such as those from the British Society for Haematology), government health information (for example NHS pages, NHS inform, the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and MedlinePlus), peer-reviewed research and reviews, and patient information from established charities and stem cell registers.

We try to balance UK and international sources, because readers come from many countries and treatment access differs between them. When a figure comes from one country or one study, the guide says so.

How we handle numbers

Every statistic in the Handbook links to the page it came from. If we can't trace a number to a source we have read, we leave it out. Survival figures, response rates and incidence figures describe groups of people in particular studies, so we report the study alongside the number and avoid turning it into a promise about any one person.

We don't publish drug doses. Doses depend on weight, kidney function, other medicines and the protocol your centre follows, and getting them from a website is risky.

When sources disagree

Guidance changes. A patient leaflet written a few years ago may describe a treatment as second line when newer guidelines now use it earlier. When we find a conflict like that, we describe both positions, name the sources, and suggest you ask your team which applies to you.

How pages are written and reviewed

Each guide starts from the questions people actually ask, which we gather from search data and patient forums. A draft is written against the sources, then checked line by line: every figure against its source, every link opened, and every claim about treatment compared with current guidance. Pages show the date they were last updated.

Corrections

If you spot an error, an outdated statement or a broken link, please use the contact form. We check every report against the sources and update the page if it needs it. Significant corrections are noted on the page that changed.

Independence

No charity, hospital, register or drug company reviews or approves what we publish. Links to outside organisations are there because they help readers, and we mark references to sources so they are easy to tell apart from the Handbook's own writing.