Comprehensive Cancer Care: Integrating Alternative, Complementary and Conventional Therapies - Hardcover

Gordon, James; Curtin, Sharon; Gordon, M.D., James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0738202843 ISBN 13: 9780738202846

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2000

Synopsis

Of the 1.5 million Americans diagnosed with cancer annually, fully half will seek alternative or complementary care for their disease. Drawing on the studies and critiques of many of the world's most gifted researchers and clinicians, this book scientifically explores the most promising complementary and alternative therapies-and sifts through the often frustrating and confusing barrage of information and misinformation about them-to provide readers with the direction and help they need to create an individualized cancer-care strategy. A powerful tool for making wiser decisions and more sensible choices to both treat and prevent cancer, the book includes: o Reports on the most accepted and researched complementary and alternative practices, including assessments of their efficacy, side effects, and cost effectiveness, and how they can best be integrated with conventional care o Empowering advice for patients with clear action steps for speaking to doctors and evaluative guidelines for researching available treatment approaches o Critical discussion of cutting-edge interventions-nutrition, Chinese medicine, herbal therapies, mind-body approaches, and energy medicine-that have undergone clinical trials and those which are now beginning to be employed.

About this title

About the Author

James S. Gordon, M.D., author of Manifesto for a New Medicine, was the first chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine. A clinical professor of medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, he is also director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., and creator of the Comprehensive Cancer Care Conference.

Sharon Curtin, author of Nobody Ever Died of Old Age, was diagnosed with cancer twenty years ago and has been helping cancer patients create integrative programs for their care ever since.

Reviews

Based on a series of medical conferences exploring new approaches to cancer, this guide discusses a wide variety of cancer-fighting modalities. Throughout, Gordon (a professor at Georgetown Univ. School of Medicine) and Curtin (Nobody Ever Died of Old Age) encourage readers to consider unfamiliar ideas, form effective patient/doctor partnerships and adopt empowered, informed patient attitudes. Often a cursory element in health guides, the case studies here genuinely support these themes, evoking the stories of cancer patients with vividness and force. The idea of integrating conventional and holistic treatments (acupuncture, diet and herbs, and meditation, among others) is not uniqueAseveral volumes on the subject have been published in the past year alone; moreover, the book treats a number of conventional and holistic tools with little detail. Instead, its true value is its focus on alternative cures, the often radical cancer-fighting tools only now being pioneered: antineoplastons, diet and detoxification programs, vaccines, etc. Both fascinating and helpful, this material points the way toward new possibilities for the remediation of even cancers currently accepted as incurable. Yet readers already stricken with one of disease's many variants may find it frustrating as well, since these methods are neither widely available nor, as yet, well supported by research and testing. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gordon (Manifesto for a New Medicine), a former chair of the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine, and Curtin, a former cancer patient and medical writer, base their book on the findings of the annual Comprehensive Cancer Care Conference, created by Gordon and cosponsored by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine and the National Cancer Institute. Their text begins with a chapter on cancer types, diagnosis, and treatment, followed by chapters on mind-body therapies, nutrition, exercise, group support, acupuncture and Chinese herbs, and evaluation of the most promising alternative therapies. Each chapter presents stories of real cancer patients and how they made complementary and alternative therapies part of their treatment. While the book does not focus on step-by-step guidance but on presenting scientific research data and history of alternative medicine, cancers patients will still find it informative. Recommended for large public libraries.DLily Liu, Arkansas Children's Hosp. Lib., Little Rock
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0738202843
• ISBN 13: 9780738202846
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314