Cancer: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment; Burdette WJ. 287 pages. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1998. $39.00. ISBN 0070089922. Order phone 800-262-4729.
Field of medicine: Hematology and oncology.
Format: Softcover book.
Audience: Persons other than oncologists, including nurses, medical students, physicians in training, and generalist physicians, who are involved in the diagnosis and care of patients with cancer.
Purpose: To provide a "comprehensive but succinct account of the professional services available" for patients with cancer and to give the reader information on how to combine these resources from multiple disciplines to optimize patient care.
Content: The first 13 chapters of the book briefly describe the entire spectrum of adult and pediatric cancer, including hematologic and solid tumors. Limited discussions of diagnosis, stage, and combined-modality treatments are provided for each disease type. The final chapter includes a cursory mention of secondary neoplasms and AIDS-related cancer.
Highlights: The book is well organized and serves as a quick reference for the nononcologist. The reference section at the end of the text includes a bibliography and a good summary of World Wide Web sites and other resources.
Limitations: The content is sometimes too general. There is little discussion of prevention and only limited information on etiology and presenting symptoms. Discussions of treatment focus principally on surgical management, and information on chemotherapy and radiation is often superficial and occasionally misleading. The author attempts to cover new advances in molecular biology where appropriate, but the effort is limited. The bibliography, although helpful, favors review articles and omits numerous primary studies. The black-and-white photographs and graphics vary in quality.
Related reading: Other books cover the same content better and will be more useful for physicians who see substantial numbers of patients with cancer. One example is the second edition of Cancer Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach (PRR Publishing, 1998), edited by Pazdur and colleagues.
Reviewer: Al B. Benson III, Northwestern Medical School, Chicago, Illinois.
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