BOOK REVIEW

Winning the Battle Against Prostate Cancer: Getting the Treatment That is Right for You

Gerald Chodak, MD

ISBN: 9781936303038, 400 pages
Publisher: Demos Medical, 2011
Rating: ★★★ (three stars out of five)

Description

Intended to be an educational tool for patients diagnosed with prostate cancer, this book’s 36 chapters are organized into six sections that span the continuum of prostate cancer care, from prevention and screening to staging treatment decision-making, and support systems.

Purpose

The author intends this book to provide easy-to-understand answers to common questions informed prostate cancer patients and their family members ask. It synthesizes current practice and medical literature into a straightforward presentation that lay people can understand.

Audience

This book does an excellent job of presenting the latest guidelines and evidence-based medicine considerations in a format appropriate for patients. It cites the most recent medical literature and explains the background data for prostate cancer recommendations, but it does so in a format that will be understandable to most prostate cancer patients. It also would be appropriate for healthcare providers who are not physicians, but are interested in learning more about the basic aspects of prostate cancer care. The author, a prostate cancer specialist with a track record in patient education and support, has provided an excellent new tool for patients.

Features

The first three chapters cover prostate cancer prevention, screening, and biopsy. The author directly presents the results of relevant trials and provides clear guidance on data interpretation. He explains the concept of evidence-based medicine and describes the shortcomings of epidemiology studies. In the second section, which covers anatomy, staging, risk grouping, and interpretation of medical studies, he provides a clear foundation for understanding what follows. The unique strength of this book is that it presents detailed information about medical studies, but it provides lay readers the requisite tools to truly understand these reports. The book is limited by lack of illustrations, particularly in the anatomy chapter and in the overview of treatment options for localized prostate cancer. One strength of the book is its inclusion of all treatment options, including cryotherapy, high-frequency ultrasound, and advanced radiation techniques, but it does so at the cost of rich details about each approach. For instance, the external beam radiation section includes the Calypso tracking system, but fails to present the concept of image-guidance and the myriad other options.

Assessment

The structure and content of this book is superb, and it will be an excellent resource for prostate cancer patients. The author skillfully provides the actual results of significant prostate cancer research in a format that will be understandable to educated lay persons.

Reviewer: Timothy N. Showalter, M Thomas Jefferson University Philadelphia, PA, USA

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© The Canadian Journal of Urology™; 18(4); August 2011

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