Dana-Farber series of cancer handbooks published
Arthur Skarin, MD
Dana-Farber physicians Arthur Skarin, MD, William Oh, MD, Christopher Lathan, MD, Jeffrey Meyerhardt, MD, and Wendy Chen, MD, together with British collaborators, are editors of a new series of pocket-sized reference books on the leading causes of cancer mortality.
The full-color, thoroughly illustrated guides on breast, lung, colorectal, and prostate cancer have just been issued by the Mosby division of Elsevier, a major publisher of health and medical books.
"They are designed to fit in the pocket of a white lab coat," says Skarin, who is the principal editor from Dana-Farber. "The British really like to carry them – when you're teaching, for example, you can have the information with you." Elsevier previously published Skarin's 2003 reference volume, the "Atlas of Diagnostic Oncology," which is the source of some of the images in the new handbooks.
Dana-Farber physicians Oh, Meyerhardt, Chen, and Lathan are co-editors of the handbooks on prostate, colorectal, breast, and lung cancer, respectively. Skarin, who is a senior attending physician at Dana-Farber and a lung cancer specialist, said the series was designed to focus on the forms of cancer that take the greatest number of lives. He notes that lung cancer causes more deaths than the other three together.
Each handbook covers risk and prevention, screening and diagnosis, and up-to-date guides to treatment. They contain algorithms to assist doctors in making management decisions, and practical advice on drug administration as well as how to deal with common problems such as fever, pain, vomiting, and hair loss.
Priced at $49.95 each (physicians receive a discount), the handbooks are available for purchase online at Elsevier.
