The Intelligent Patient Guide to Breast Cancer, Fifth Edition: All You Need to Know to Take an Active Part in Your Treatment.

This best-selling self-help book for cancer patients and their families, by five practicing physicians and professors of medicine from Toronto and Vancouver, is the definitive authority on all aspects of breast cancer. It equips patients with the knowledge needed to take an active part in their treatment. Patients involved in making decisions about their treatment are better able to deal with their illness than are patients who give control to their doctors. Topics covered in the book include what cancer is, all about mammograms, breast self-examination technique, risk, what to do if a lump is found, benefits and side effects of all treatments, chemotherapy and radiation, what type of surgery is best, coping with cancer, reconstructive surgery and physiotherapy, living with the diagnosis, diet and vitamins, what herceptin is and how it should be used, the new concept of partial breast radiotherapy, what a sentinel node biopsy is, preventing recurrence of cancer, and practical tips.