Eduardo L. Franco – författare

Dramatic advances in our understanding of cancer causation have come from epidemiologic and laboratory research, particularly over the past two decades. These developments have included a broadening interest in the critical events that take place during the early stages of the dynamic multistep process leading to - vasive cancer. Increasingly, cancer epidemiologists are pursuing research into the origins and natural history of premalignant lesions, including intermediate or surrogate endpoints, a trend - celerated by the development of molecular technologies that are revolutionizing our understanding of the transformation of normal to malignant cells. There seems little doubt that this emerging knowledge will provide further insights not only into carcinogenic processes, but also into more sensitive methods of early detection and more effective means of prevention. In this book, Drs. Franco and Rohan have succeeded in prep- ing a comprehensive, timely, and critical review of the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding of cancer p- cursors. They have enlisted experts in the ?eld who have c- tributed authoritative chapters on the precursors to a wide variety of cancers,with emphasis on etiology and natural history,including the role of environmental and heritable factors that provoke normal cells to undergo malignant transformation. Epidemiologic data are linked whenever possible to molecular as well as classical cellular pathology, providing a fuller understanding of the causal events and mechanisms that initiate the carcinogenic process.

The purpose of this book is to bring together in one place a discussion of the methodological issues associated with the study of precancerous conditions, as well as reviews of the contributions of descriptive, analytical, and molecular epidemiological research to knowledge about cancer precursors at specific anatomical locations. Such a book is particularly timely, given that the last few years have seen enormous progress in terms of molecular epidemiological research on cancers and their precursors. This research has focused essentially on the early natural history of cancers, by helping to define the etiology of precursor lesions, improving the means of detecting them either directly or via testing of surrogate biomarkers, and by elucidating the role of remote causes leading to the early onset of such lesions. and prostate, as well as chapters on screening, chemoprevention and treatment. Cancer Precursors is a groundbreaking, multidisciplinary text for oncologists, epidemiologists, cancer researchers, pathologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, and graduate students in the cancer-related fields.