When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, she is typically given a week or two to decide what treatments she wants. The treatments she will be asked to choose among are: * Mastectomy -- amputation of the entire breast with some, perhaps a lot of, additional tissue. * Lumpectomy -- excision of the malignant tumor with enough healthy tissue to ensure safe margins. * Axillary surgery -- dissection of some or all of the lymph nodes in the armpit adjacent to the affected breast, for diagnostic purposes. * Radiation -- five or six weeks of daily x-ray treatments for a total exposure of ten times the radiation suffered by the victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. * Chemotherapy -- six months of drugs designed to kill cancerous cells but which also invariably kill healthy cells. * Hormone therapy -- five years of Tamoxifen. The breast cancer patient's choices will have an enormous impact on the rest of her life, even a role in determining its duration. Nevertheless, until now she had no way to get the information she needs from an unbiased source. Instead, she had to consult the books written for the general public by the doctors who make their livings administering these treatments. These books, essentially sales brochures, typically exaggerate the benefits of the treatments on offer and downplay their often ferocious side effects and long-term medical risks.
George Goldberg has produced an indispensable guide to breast cancer treatments for the woman who wants the "informed consent" she must give to obtain treatments to be truly informed. Using the same sources the doctors use, the peer-reviewed medical journals and texts which report the results of clinical trials held at cancer centers around the world, Goldberg provides a clear costs/benefits analysis of each of these treatment modalities. Every fact is footnoted, allowing the interested reader to follow every statement to its origin.
In addition, Goldberg taps a source never before used by medical writers - the official records of medical malpractice. These are the stories of what happens to real women in the real world, rather than those enrolled in strictly supervised clinical trials at leading research institutions. Their stories are as moving as they are instructive. Goldberg uses real names and citations to the official court records for anyone who wants to read the entire account or be referred to others like it.
It should be emphasized that, though this is no book for "dummies" or "idiots," any literate person can read it. It is never dumbed down, but all unfamiliar words are defined, all medical procedures are fully described. Enlivened by many anecdotes, it is even, despite its terrifying subject, an enjoyable book to read. But above all, it is a serious book meant for women at a critical moment of their lives -- and for the men who love them and want to help them made the most important decisions they will ever make.
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Enough Already! The Overtreatment of Early Breast Cancer with chapters on the Law of Informed Consent and Medical Malpractice
Orignal From: Enough Already! The Overtreatment of Early Breast Cancer with chapters on the Law of Informed Consent and Medical Malpractice
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