Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment or Regaining Your Self

Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment: Medical Specialists and Cancer Survivors Tell You What You Need to Know

Author: Kenneth D Miller

A diagnosis of breast cancer can be overwhelming. The disease is frightening and the medical landscape confusing. In the wake of fear and confusion comes the need to make decisions about treatment. This book provides women with medically reliable and up-to-date information to help them with these decisions.

Within these pages the reader will find a team of private consultants -- including surgeons, medical oncologists, radiologists, plastic surgeons, and women who have faced breast cancer -- each of whom offers sound advice and valuable insight. In addition to describing surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and breast reconstruction, the medical experts clarify choices and offer support, while breast cancer survivors tell their own stories of pain, perseverance, and triumph.

Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment is a rare blend of medical expertise and compelling personal accounts that empowers those with breast cancer to meet the disease with confidence, knowledge, and hope.

Publishers Weekly

Miller, an oncologist and director of the Yale Cancer Center Survivorship Program, presents a unique and indispensable book for women facing breast cancer, which features individual chapters written by medical experts and breast cancer survivors. Asserting that "knowledgeable people make different choices, for different reasons," Miller's overarching message is that each woman is unique, as is her experience with this life-threatening disease. Because there are so many potential scenarios-based upon the tumor's size, the stage of cancer, etc.-treatment options vary, and women must decide which route to take in a timely fashion while simultaneously confronting their fears. Miller's approach provides the reader with the sense that she's had a private and unhurried consultation with each specialist: medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and surgeons. In addition the book includes personal accounts of survivors who have faced an array of experiences, from the woman whose mammogram reveals a lump just weeks before her wedding to the breast cancer statistician who is diagnosed with the very disease she is studying. This collection will help to fortify women making tough choices, offering invaluable information along with hope. (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Heidi H Richardson, MD(University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics)
Description:This book provides newly diagnosed breast cancer patients with medical facts, descriptions of treatment options, and tips from breast cancer survivors.
Purpose:It assists patients in understanding their treatment options in order to better prepare them to make important decisions regarding their care. The author does an excellent job of describing breast cancer in layman's terms and incorporating accounts from breast cancer survivors.
Audience:The editor is a medical oncologist at the Yale Cancer Center and is the husband of a cancer survivor. The other contributors include medical oncologists, breast surgeons, radiation oncologists, and reconstructive surgeons, as well as breast cancer survivors. Although intended for breast cancer patients, it is also an excellent resource for family members of breast cancer patients as well as women at high risk for the development of breast cancer.
Features:Organized into five sections, this book begins with an overview of breast cancer. This is followed by a discussion of treatment options, the experience of having breast cancer, and narratives from breast cancer survivors, concluding with narratives from healthcare professionals who also had breast cancer. These personal accounts provide important information about the emotional aspects associated with a diagnosis of breast cancer and may help women better anticipate the difficulties of their journey.
Assessment:This is a useful book for patients and their families as it provides a good description of treatment options as well astips from breast cancer survivors.

Rebecca Raszewski - Library Journal

In 2007, there were over 170,000 new breast cancer cases, so the need for up-to-date resources continues. Drawing on the expertise of private consultants, this five-part book edited by Miller (medicine & oncology, Yale Cancer Ctr.) succeeds at being an authoritative resource for a wide audience: women who are at high risk for developing breast cancer and even those with metastatic cancer. The first two parts introduce breast cancer and its treatments; the last three parts deal with the personal experience of breast cancer. Various chapters profile doctors in specialties related to breast cancer such as radiation oncologists and plastic surgeons-there is even a chapter about doctors who are breast cancer survivors. This book effectively illustrates the disease's complexity. Readers will see how women made choices based on what was best for themselves, not on statistics. The illustrations are helpful in demonstrating how breast cancer forms and the surgical procedures. Although medical terms are defined in different sections, a glossary would have been helpful. Highly recommended for consumer health and public libraries.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Understanding the Choices   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     1
The Big Picture     9
Making Decisions   Laura A. Siminoff, Ph.D.     11
What Is Breast Cancer?   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     26
A Statistic of One   April Fritz, RHIT, CTR     43
"Why Me?" A Discussion of Risk   Mark Robson, M.D.     59
Understanding the Treatments: The Doctors' Perspectives     73
Assembling the Treatment Team and Charting a Course   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     75
Facing Surgery   Peter J. Deckers, M.D.   Theodore N. Tsangaris, M.D.     86
Profiles of Two Breast Surgeons   Jerome Sandler, M.D.   Robert Barnett, M.D.     103
Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer   Abram Recht, M.D.     110
Profiles of Two Radiation Oncologists   Luther Ampey, M.D.   Susan Stinson, M.D.     125
Beyond Local Therapy: Hormonal Therapy and Chemotherapy   Antonio C. Wolff, M.D.   Nancy E. Davidson, M.D.     132
Profiles of Three Medical Oncologists   Claudine Isaacs, M.D.   Sandra Swain, M.D.   Chitra Rajagopal, M.D.     153
Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy: What Are My Options?   Roger J. Friedman, M.D.     164
Profiles of Two Reconstructive Surgeons   Gregory O. Dick, M.D.   Maurice Nahabedian, M.D.     179
Treatment Options for Metastatic Breast Cancer   Daniel F. Hayes, M.D.     186
Notes on the Experience of Having Breast Cancer     201
The Shock of Finding Out   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     203
Necessary Decisions: Surgery, Radiation Therapy, and Breast Reconstruction   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     207
Considering Adjuvant Therapy   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     212
Reflections on the Experience   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     217
Survivors Tell Their Stories     223
Stories from Women at High Risk     225
Stories from Women with Non-Invasive Breast Cancer     238
Stories from Women with Invasive Breast Cancer     263
Stories from Women with Advanced Breast Cancer     328
When Cancer Specialists Get Cancer     347
A Professional and a Patient   Carole Seddon, LCSW-C, OSW-C     349
Lessons Learned   April Fritz, RHIT, CTR     359
"You're Going to Live"   Lillie Shockney, R.N., B.S., M.A.S.     377
Conclusion: The Agony and the Opportunity of Choice   Kenneth D. Miller, M.D.     389
About the Contributors     393
Index     397

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Regaining Your Self: Breaking Free from the Eating Disorder Indentity: A Bold New Approach

Author: Ira M Sacker

A new understanding and approach to eating disorders from a renowned expert, coauthor of the classic Dying to Be Thin

Nearly 5 percent of Americans face an eating disorder -- and eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Long considered an affliction of young women, they are now common among young men, middle-aged women, and even children as young as five. This is a health crisis of epidemic proportions.

Regaining Your Self offers hope in the battle against eating disorders through a radical new therapy technique pioneered by Ira M. Sacker, M.D. A leader in the field, Dr. Sacker has been treating patients with eating disorders for thirty-five years. This breakthrough book, filled with firsthand accounts from patients, family members, friends, and others, provides what patients and their families desperately need: a therapeutic model that heals.

Ira M. Sacker, M.D., is Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Medical Center. He is also the Founder, President, and Medical Director of HEED Foundation, Inc. (Helping End Eating Disorders), a not-for-profit organization, and the coauthor of Dying to Be Thin. Dr. Sacker lives on Long Island, New York.

Melody Ballard - Library Journal

Once talked about only in whispers, eating disorders now receive national attention. They are so prevalent that they are widely believed to have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. It is now known that eating disorders, once attributed to teenage girls, can affect anyone of any age, gender, socioeconomic background, or ethnicity. Sacker (coauthor, Dying To Be Thin: Understanding and Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia—A Practical, Lifesaving Guide) is a highly regarded authority on the subject of eating disorders. Along with Buff, Sacker provides an in-depth view of this diverse disorder, giving readers a solid foundation for identifying eating disorders and the means to "break free" and, most important, to recover oneself. Throughout, vignettes tell the stories of those who have become victims of eating disorders, and the final chapter is a "message of hope." Insightful, well organized, and informative, this book is essential for most collections.