Precis This book is a treatise about the origin of cancers. I would like to convince readers that the basic tenets of the theory of a stem-cell origin of cancers also constitute a unified theory of cancer. Stem-cell origin of normal (and cancer) cells: Vitruvian version Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second, it is opposed, in the third, it is regarded as self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer v vi Preface Every person has a unique story to tell. My story is about cancer. Cancer touches the lives of countless people. Often...

The current volume represents the fourth over a period of five years in our series on Advances in the Cellular and Molecular Biology of Breast Cancer. The first three volumes were entitled Breast Cancer: Cellular and Molecular Biology, Regulatory Mechanisms in Breast Cancer, and Genes, Oncogenes, and Hormones, respectively. Throughout this series, we have tried to take a broad look at cutting-edge topics in basic science research into breast cancer. This attempt has resulted in a wide range of subject material, including rodent and human model systems, oncogenes, suppressor genes, growth...

More often than not, progress in medicine occurs incrementally. The report of an 'important' new observation is typically greeted by a mixture of excitement and skepticism. Yet the true value of the discovery may not be known for several years until it is confirmed (or refuted) by independently conducted studies. In some cases, controversy may continue to shroud a topic due to the discordant results generated by different research groups. Since the last Gynecologic Oncology volume in the Cancer Treatment and Research series, a number of new areas have emerged that shed new light on the...

The decade of the 1990s will see an increasing emphasis on the modulation of chemotherapeutic drug selectivity and in the 'lock and key' approach to new targets to control malignant proliferation. The contents of this volume appropriately reflect these scientific undercurrents. An emerging powerful tool of molecular pharmacology is described by Holcenberg and Wu. Manipulation of genetic expression by modification of messenger RNA is now within our reach, and the basic concepts are suc cinctly reviewed as a primer on future biochemical engineering of new anti cancer molecules. Another concept...

Where do you begin to look for a recent, authoritative article on the diagnosis or management of a particular malignancy? The few general oncology textbooks are generally out of date. Single papers in specialized journals are informative, but seldom comprehensive; these are more often preliminary reports on a very limited number of patients. Certain general journals frequently publish good in-depth reviews of cancer topics, and published symposium lectures are often the best overviews available. Unfor tunately, these reviews and supplements appear sporadically, and the reader can never be...

Where do you begin to look for a recent, authoritative article on the diagnosis or management of a particular malignancy? The few general oncology text books are generally out of date. Single papers in specialized journal are informative but seldom comprehensive; these are more often preliminary reports on a very limited number of patients. Certain general journals frequently publish good in-depth 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 never be sure...

Fernando Cabanillas In 1993, Fisher et al. published the results of a randomized trial comparing three third-generation regimens against the classic CHOP combination. For several years, the oncology community had been convinced that the third generation regimens were clearly superior to CHOP. It came as a shock to many that there was no difference in outcome between the four arms of this clinical trial. The logical conclusion is that CHOP is as good as any of the other regimens tested in that study. Unfortunately, this excellent study has been misinterpreted by many as proving that there has...

Blood Stem Cell Transplantation conveys the excitement that accompanies the newest developments in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Some of the applications that stand to impact this field most significantly are based on recent advances in the biological sciences, as demonstrated by the chapters on gene therapy, on the detection of minimal residual disease using molecular techniques, and on the use of radioimmunoconjugates targeting lymphoma and leukemia-associated antigens. Others are the results of clinical observations - e.g., the association between graft-versus-host-...

Peritoneal carcinomatosis dominates the clinical picture of many patients with gastrointestinal, gynecological and urological cancers. For many of them its dev astating effects contribute directly to their death. Most clinicians consider peritoneal carcinomatosis an incurable metastatic disease and give palliative treatment, re stricted to limited surgery and systemic chemotherapy. Contrary to this view, Paul Sugarbaker and his collegues base their approach on the concept that peritoneal carcinomatosis represents regional tumor spread, similar in its impact on treatment and prognosis to that...