The emotional pressures on cancer patients and their families are increasing and traditional supports are decreasing. This book attempts to provide a readable, authoritative and balanced review of the emotional pressures and coping methods of cancer patients, and the help currently available to them. The special problems of children and terminal patients with cancer, and the role of the family in coping, are also examined. A balanced and critical assessment is made of defects in health organisation, training of personnel and attitudes to cancer patients in Western society. A similar...

The last 30 years have seen little improvement in the age-adjusted mortality rates for most common types of cancer, and until we develop more effective and less damaging treatment modalities for these tumours, selection of each patient's treatment must depend on prognostic pointers. These lead to a calculated trade off between our estimate of likely benefit to the patient, as against cost in terms of quality of life. But changes have occurred recently in our understanding of the traditional prognostic pointers used for selecting such individualised treatment. First, it is increasingly...