Clara D. Bloomfield - Böcker

Where do you begin to look for a recent, authoritative article on the diagnosis or management of a particular malignancy? The few general on­ cology textbooks are generally out of date. Single papers in specialized jour­ nals are informative but seldom comprehensive; these are more often pre­ liminary reports on a very limited number of patients. Certain general jour­ nals frequently publish good indepth reviews of cancer topics, and published symposium lectures are often the best overviews available. Unfortunately, these reviews and supplements appear sporadically, and the reader can nev­ er be sure when a topic of special interest will be covered. Cancer Treatment and Research is a series of authoritative volumes which aim to meet this need. It is an attempt to establish a critical mass of oncology literature covering virtually all oncology topics, revised frequently to keep the coverage up to date, easily available on a single library shelf or by a single personal subscription. We have approached the problem in the following fashion. First, by di­ viding the oncology literature into specific subdivisions such as lung cancer, genitourinary cancer, pediatric oncology, etc. Second,. by asking eminent authorities in each of these areas to edit a volume on the specific topic on an annual or biannual basis. Each topic and tumor type is covered in a volume appearing frequently and predictably, discussing current diagnosis, staging, markers, all forms of treatment modalities, basic biology, and more.

Where do you begin to look for a recent, authoritative article on the diagnosis or management of a particular malignancy? The few general on­ cology textbooks are generally out of date. Single papers in specialized jour­ nals are informative but seldom comprehensive; these are more often pre­ liminary reports on a very limited number of patients. Certain general jour­ nals frequently publish good indepth reviews of cancer topics, and published symposium lectures are often the best overviews available. Unfortunately, these reviews and supplements appear sporadically, and the reader can nev­ er be sure when a topic of special interest will be covered. Cancer Treatment and Research is a series of authoritative volumes which aim to meet this need. It is an attempt to establish a critical mass of oncology literature covering virtually all oncology topics, revised frequently to keep the coverage up to date, easily available on a single library shelf or by a single personal subscription. We have approached the problem in the following fashion. First, by di­ viding the oncology literature into specific subdivisions such as lung cancer, genitourinary cancer, pediatric oncology, etc. Second,. by asking eminent authorities in each of these areas to edit a volume on the specific topic on an annual or biannual basis. Each topic and tumor type is covered in a volume appearing frequently and predictably, discussing current diagnosis, staging, markers, all forms of treatment modalities, basic biology, and more.

Chromosome abnormalities of cancer cells have been recognized for a long time, and have generally proven to be a highly specific marker ofmalignancy. The contri- butions collected in this book, "Tumor Aneuploidy", cover several major aspects of present knowledge conceming the occurrence and clinical significance of chromo- some abnormalities as delineated by karyotype analyses or measurements of the cellular DNA content. Certain non-random clonal chromosome losses, deletions and translocations ap- pear to represent primary genetic lesions of malignancies and reflect their clonal origin. Secondary intraneoplastic genetic evolution is suggested by major clonal ab- normalities of chromosome number and cellular DNA content. Both types of ge- netic changes have been reaching great relevance in cancer medicine, today. Although the Philadelphia chromosome was first discovered in chronic myelo- cytic leukemia (CML), by Nowell and Hungerford in 1960, new banding techniques developed in the 1970's were needed to identity this abnormality as a translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 (t(9; 22)).Soon thereafter, further non-random translocations were detected and attributed to special diseases like t(8; 21) and t(15; 17) to acute myeloid leukemias (AML) and t(9; 22), t(4; 11), t(8; 14) to acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).