Behind Cairn
How Cairn is built
Cairn helps people facing kidney or pancreatic cancer, and the people caring for them, understand what usually comes next and what to ask their care team. This page explains where its information comes from, how it's checked, and how it keeps your information private.
This site is a demonstration. Its content comes from National Cancer Institute sources, but no clinician has reviewed it yet, so it isn't ready for patients to rely on. A physician's review comes next.
Cairn in numbers
- Topics
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- Sources cited
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- Standard medical codes
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- Reviewed by a clinician
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From sources to questions
Four steps, every time
Every piece of Cairn follows the same path before anyone sees it.
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Trusted sources
Everything starts with public, reputable sources, mostly the National Cancer Institute. Cairn explains them in plain words and links back to each one.
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Connected topics
Each topic, such as a type of cancer, a stage, a test, a specialist, or a question to ask, is one entry linked to the others. Together they form a map of what usually comes next.
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Checks and review
Automated checks run on every change: each topic must cite a source, each link must lead somewhere real, and the writing is checked for reading level. Then people review it.
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Your map and questions
The site turns your answers into a map of what usually comes next and a list of questions to bring to an appointment. AI assistants can use the same content.
What Cairn promises
Built to be trusted
These rules are part of how Cairn is made, and automated checks enforce most of them.
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Every fact has a source
Each topic links to the pages it comes from, so you can read the original. The content map shows every topic with its sources.
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Reviewed before it's published
Topics start as drafts, some written with help from AI tools and marked that way. A physician reviews each one and a second person cross-checks it before it's published.
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Private by design
No accounts, no ads, and nothing that follows you. Your answers stay in your browser on your device. Visits are counted with Cloudflare's privacy-friendly analytics: no cookies, and nothing you enter. The site's security policy blocks everything else.
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Rules, not a chatbot
What you see comes from set rules applied to reviewed content, not from AI writing answers. The same answers always give the same map, and every rule is tested.
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Plain language, for everyone
Written to make difficult medical terms easy for anyone to understand. We aim to explain the words you might hear from your care team. Built to accessibility standards, and to work on older phones.
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Speaks the language of health records
Topics carry standard medical codes (NCI Thesaurus, ICD-10-CM, ICD-O-3, LOINC), each marked with how closely it matches, and checked automatically against the official terminology services.
For AI assistants
Grounded answers, not guesses
People already ask AI assistants about a diagnosis. Cairn can give those assistants reviewed, sourced content to answer from.
Through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI assistants to information, an assistant such as Claude can:
- look up a topic by name or by medical code,
- read its plain-language summary, its sources, and whether it has been reviewed,
- and get the same map of what usually comes next that this site builds.
Every answer carries Cairn's disclaimer and sources. Cairn asks the assistant to cite them, to frame things as questions for the care team, to say when Cairn doesn't cover something rather than guess, and to keep its own words separate from Cairn's. Cairn itself runs no AI.
MCP access is available on request. Get in touch on LinkedIn.
What's next
Where Cairn is going
Clinical review
A physician reviews the content and a second reviewer cross-checks it. Then the first reviewed version goes live.
Spanish
The site and its content in Spanish, with each translation reviewed before it's published.
Clinical trials
A clinical trial finder, updated every night from ClinicalTrials.gov.
Side effects and support
Clinician-reviewed warning signs, and practical and financial help.
Get in touch
Questions, or interested in MCP access?
Cairn is built by Brandon Lippincott. Reach out about the project, access for AI assistants, or a problem with the content. For medical questions, please talk with your care team.