- Email: [email protected]
What you really need to know about cancer
THE LANCET
What you really need to know about cancer
telangiectasia genes) was identified in 1995 and may soon become of clinical use, and because carriers are unusually radiosensitive and often tolerate many books aimed at patients. This This is a disappointing book to treatment poorly. review. Reviewers like to dazzle with i volume does not undermine trust in i I believe that the section on cancer doctors; on the contrary, it contains their trenchant wit and their erudite of the cervix should have at least menvocabulary, but this volume leaves i repeated reminders that nothing in it i tioned cervical intraepithelial neoplais meant to supplant or contradict the i sia (CIN), since many patients want little scope for a verbal tour de force because there is not enough wrong i medical advice a patient receives. to know what CIN I1 or 111 means. As i There are always three questions for with it. colposcopy, it may well be done, as When Robert Buckman started I for a reviewer. Who is this book for? i Buckman describes in the glossary, writing the book, he asked a group of i ~ l t h o u g hwritten for cancer patients with an instrument like a thin telecancer patients exactly what they and their families, medical students i scope. But he omits to say that the wanted to know. One of the answers i and nurses might also find it useful. i speculum is like a Volvo with its doors was “a happy ending”. This is hard i What qualifications does the author open. given the topic, but Buckman has i have for writing it? He is a medical i Lastly, I should point out that this oncologist at the University of managed to be upbeat about a subject book is unfunny, which is just as well. most of us find depressing-as he i Toronto as well as an established i Readers may have expectations since writer, and this volume is written in says, there are many more people livBuckman is a funny writer, but the ing with cancer than there are dying i collaboration with the Cancer i only joke here is a huge grey C on the Research Campaign. of it. However, he has not stuck to the jacket, so large and pale that you may So what is wrong with the book? i good news. Each chapter details a dif- i miss it. Some subjects are not Oh, all right then. If one must. The ferent cancer (including cancer of amenable to gags and doctors should unknown primary), its causative fac- i section on how cancer is caused is fas- i not make them. I once wrote a piece cinating but seems too detailed for tors where known, and the usual for Punch on the topic of leishmaniatreatments, including chemotherapy i most readers. It is not so much “what i you really need to know”, as i sis, but not everyone managed to regimens and their common sidelaugh. promised by the title, as what you i effects. All in all, this book gives solid might like to read if you have an IQ of Wisely, Buckman does not give figaccessible information and there is litures for survival, his rationale being i 120+ and want to expand your mind. i tle to fault. Although I have managed On the other hand, the chapter on that percentages can be misundera few criticisms, my heart is not in any stood, and that global figures are i breast cancer fails to mention ataxia of them, and the only thing left to do telangiectasia, female carriers of i unlikely to help individuals work out with the book is to recommend it to their own chances. Hope and fear, i which are thought to have a risk of i patients. It could be one of the best breast cancer four times greater than i stress, and cancer are sensibly covdistress purchases they make. normal. This could be an important ered, as are complementary therapies i and the doctor-patient relationship, area because the ataxia telangiectasia i Carol Cooper both of which are knotty areas for i gene (or rather one of the ataxia i The Surgery. 14 Cuckoo Lane, London W7 3EY. UK A comprehensive guide for patients and their families.-Robert Macmillan. 1996.Pp 484. €20./SEN 0333618661.
i i i
i
i
i i i i i
i i i i
Buckman. London:
i i
i i
i i i
i i
i i i i
Endpiece
Common hyperalgesic tender shes In flbromyalgia Fibromyalgia is common in hospital practice; most patients are women in their 40s and 50s.The principal positive signs On examination are multiple hyperalgesic tender sites, commonly situated as indicated above. Taken from ABC of Rheumatology, edited by Michael L Snaith. (London: BMJ Publishing Group. 1996.Pp 90.€14.95.ISBN 0-7279-0997-5.)
392
-
Vol 348 August 10, 1996
What you really need to know about cancer
telangiectasia genes) was identified in 1995 and may soon become of clinical use, and because carriers are unusually radiosensitive and often tolerate many books aimed at patients. This This is a disappointing book to treatment poorly. review. Reviewers like to dazzle with i volume does not undermine trust in i I believe that the section on cancer doctors; on the contrary, it contains their trenchant wit and their erudite of the cervix should have at least menvocabulary, but this volume leaves i repeated reminders that nothing in it i tioned cervical intraepithelial neoplais meant to supplant or contradict the i sia (CIN), since many patients want little scope for a verbal tour de force because there is not enough wrong i medical advice a patient receives. to know what CIN I1 or 111 means. As i There are always three questions for with it. colposcopy, it may well be done, as When Robert Buckman started I for a reviewer. Who is this book for? i Buckman describes in the glossary, writing the book, he asked a group of i ~ l t h o u g hwritten for cancer patients with an instrument like a thin telecancer patients exactly what they and their families, medical students i scope. But he omits to say that the wanted to know. One of the answers i and nurses might also find it useful. i speculum is like a Volvo with its doors was “a happy ending”. This is hard i What qualifications does the author open. given the topic, but Buckman has i have for writing it? He is a medical i Lastly, I should point out that this oncologist at the University of managed to be upbeat about a subject book is unfunny, which is just as well. most of us find depressing-as he i Toronto as well as an established i Readers may have expectations since writer, and this volume is written in says, there are many more people livBuckman is a funny writer, but the ing with cancer than there are dying i collaboration with the Cancer i only joke here is a huge grey C on the Research Campaign. of it. However, he has not stuck to the jacket, so large and pale that you may So what is wrong with the book? i good news. Each chapter details a dif- i miss it. Some subjects are not Oh, all right then. If one must. The ferent cancer (including cancer of amenable to gags and doctors should unknown primary), its causative fac- i section on how cancer is caused is fas- i not make them. I once wrote a piece cinating but seems too detailed for tors where known, and the usual for Punch on the topic of leishmaniatreatments, including chemotherapy i most readers. It is not so much “what i you really need to know”, as i sis, but not everyone managed to regimens and their common sidelaugh. promised by the title, as what you i effects. All in all, this book gives solid might like to read if you have an IQ of Wisely, Buckman does not give figaccessible information and there is litures for survival, his rationale being i 120+ and want to expand your mind. i tle to fault. Although I have managed On the other hand, the chapter on that percentages can be misundera few criticisms, my heart is not in any stood, and that global figures are i breast cancer fails to mention ataxia of them, and the only thing left to do telangiectasia, female carriers of i unlikely to help individuals work out with the book is to recommend it to their own chances. Hope and fear, i which are thought to have a risk of i patients. It could be one of the best breast cancer four times greater than i stress, and cancer are sensibly covdistress purchases they make. normal. This could be an important ered, as are complementary therapies i and the doctor-patient relationship, area because the ataxia telangiectasia i Carol Cooper both of which are knotty areas for i gene (or rather one of the ataxia i The Surgery. 14 Cuckoo Lane, London W7 3EY. UK A comprehensive guide for patients and their families.-Robert Macmillan. 1996.Pp 484. €20./SEN 0333618661.
i i i
i
i
i i i i i
i i i i
Buckman. London:
i i
i i
i i i
i i
i i i i
Endpiece
Common hyperalgesic tender shes In flbromyalgia Fibromyalgia is common in hospital practice; most patients are women in their 40s and 50s.The principal positive signs On examination are multiple hyperalgesic tender sites, commonly situated as indicated above. Taken from ABC of Rheumatology, edited by Michael L Snaith. (London: BMJ Publishing Group. 1996.Pp 90.€14.95.ISBN 0-7279-0997-5.)
392
-
Vol 348 August 10, 1996