This book on ovarian cancer is one of a series, Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer, which gathers state-of-the-art research and recommendations into compact, easy to use volumes. The intention is to “make expert advice as accessible as possible to a wide variety of health care professionals.”
Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer - Ovarian Cancer is a well written, quality, hard copy text. It is easy to follow, with key points summarised at the beginning of each chapter. The content includes chapters on epidemiology, screening, pathology, genetics, imaging, surgery and chemotherapy, which are written by a variety of experts using recent, respected research and clinical trials. There are many high quality coloured photographs and illustrations to assist the reader, with boxes and tables to summarise recommended strategies, protocols, indications and contraindications, as well as statistics and other essential information. Throughout the book, tables and figures summarise important clinical data and support the text. Each chapter concludes with an impressive list of references providing further useful information.
I enjoyed this book as an excellent source of reference, which despite being easy to follow, still provides a depth of information for health care professionals to better understand ovarian cancer including genetics, screening, diagnostics and treatment procedures. One limitation of the text is the omission of a chapter which describes the psychosocial impact of a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and living with a disease which has a high recurrence and mortality rate. Despite the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to care, it is only very briefly mentioned in the concluding paragraph.
Nevertheless, this book is highly relevant and I can certainly recommend it to health care professionals including clinicians, general practitioners and gynaecologic oncology nurses who want to better understand the disease, screening and staging, as well as the rationale for recommended treatment pathways. It would be a useful text for gynaecologic oncology wards and hospital libraries.