Review by Choice Review
Long considered the go-to book for information on breast care (1st ed., 1990) and now available in a fully revised fifth edition, this volume by Love (UCLA; founder, National Breast Cancer Coalition) is a candid, authoritative, and splendidly well-written guide for women facing a diagnosis, decisions about treatment, and concerns about prevention of breast cancer. The author shares new optimism based on recent insights from basic science and other promising changes in treating the one-in-eight American women stricken yearly with breast cancer. A third of the book covers breast physiology and development, breast-feeding, other noncancerous conditions, and, briefly, breast cancer in men. Love discusses current treatments including surgery/oncoplastic surgery and radiation, systemic, and complementary therapies. Good statistics on ten-year survival rates are not available because current treatment protocols have not been in use that long; currently available survival and mortality statistics tend to be outdated and thus don't provide an accurate picture of today's treatment outcomes. A surprising omission is a separate section for newly diagnosed survivors: what they should do next and how to detect any recurrences. Appendixes include a list of commonly used drugs, Web resources, and a glossary. Summing Up; Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. P. Wermager University of Hawaii at Manoa
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
More than an up-to-date advisory for the reportedly one-in-eleven women stricken with breast cancer, this is a candid, comprehensive, splendidly well-written guide to a part of the body about which most women know surprisingly little. Originally a general surgeon and now a specialist in breast problems, Love teaches at Harvard Medical School and is affiliated with Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. With writer Lindsey ( Friends ), she devotes two-thirds of the text to breast cancer, thoroughly covering all aspects of the disease from relative risks to diagnosis (and its emotional impact) and the gamut of treatment options. The authors survey breast development and physiology, appearance (their discussion of plastic surgery is straightforward and nonjudgmental), breast-feeding and common noncancerous conditions, telling all in a tone at once wise and warm. Quotes from Love's patients lend additional scope, as do appendices ranging from recommended reading to lists of support groups and treatment centers. BOMC selection; first serial to Good Housekeeping (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Six times is the charm, with this sixth edition of the title people turn to with questions about breast health as well as disease. This latest iteration by Love, clinical professor of surgery at UCLA and author of Dr. Susan Love's Menopause and Hormone Book, with journalist and researcher Elizabeth Love and author Lindsey (Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VII), addresses metastatic breast cancer and the longer survival rates of its sufferers, making breast cancer more and more like a chronic disease. New to this edition is the use of "liquid biopsy," blood tests that trace metastases, and ways of lessening the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Love recommends "watchful waiting" with regard to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), rather that immediate treatment; considers research on the benefits (if any) of soy products; and puts forth the efficacy of hormonal therapeutic approaches. Regarding treatment, immunotherapy and vaccines may begin to supplant chemo and radiation; changing the immediate environment of a tumor will be of more significance than targeting the tumor itself. VERDICT Love her or not, Love is the go-to for all matters of the breast.-BLF © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Whatever questions you might have about your breasts, Love, a Harvard Medical School breast surgeon, answers them here--not with a ""yes,"" ""no,"" or ""3%,"" but by reviewing and critiquing relevant studies, considering pros and cons (of wearing bras . . .of plastic surgery. . .of breast-feeding with cancer), citing cases from her practice, and noting various qualifying factors and considerations. And she does this with sympathy, patience, and respect. Love covers everything from variations in shape and size to various common conditions (but as for that all-too-common diagnosis, fibrocystic disease, ""there's no such thing""--and you can forget about any claimed effects of coffee). But the bulk of the book deals with breast cancer, from risk factors to rehabilitation or recurrence, again with exceptional thoroughness. The meaning of various pre- and ""pre-pre-cancerous"" conditions, different theories on how breast cancer spreads and their implications for treatment, the uses and limitations of staging tests to detect metastasis, the advisability of chemotherapy for different categories of patients (e.g., node-negative premenopausal women who are also hormone-receptor-negative) are among the topics explored. This could be more than some patients want to deal with. But for those dissatisfied with the usual popular medical guides, and certainly for libraries, it's a boon. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
