Colon & Rectal Cancer: A Patient's Guide to Treatment - Softcover

Ruggieri MD, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1886039518 ISBN 13: 9781886039513

Publisher: Addicus Books, 2001

Synopsis

Have You Been Diagnosed with Colon Cancer?

 

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with colon cancer, you're probably already experiencing the whirlwind of emotions that come with a cancer diagnosis. You're worried and frightened. You're probably full of questions. You wonder how far the disease has advanced. What tests will you go through? What form of treatment will you undergo?

 

Surgeon Paul Ruggieri, M.D., understands such pressing questions, and offers answers that help bring peace of mind.  In Colon & Rectal Cancer, Dr. Ruggieri covers such topics as:
 
•  symptoms and risk factors for colon cancer
•  medical tests for getting a diagnosis
•  the importance of staging the cancer
•  benefits and risks of various treatments
•  surgery, radiation, chemotherapy…how they work
•  how colon cancer can be prevented
 
A Valuable Resource for Patients and Families!

About this title

About the Author

Paul Ruggieri, MD, is chief of the department of surgery at St. Anne’s Hospital, Fall River, Massachusetts. He specializes in thyroid and minimally invasive surgery. He is the author of The Surgery Handbook—A Guide to Understanding Your Operation.

Reviews

Aimed at the patient and caregiver, this guide is authored by a board-certified general surgeon and thyroid specialist. Ruggieri's The Surgery Handbook (Addicus, 1999) was a good overview of what to expect during an operation. Here, he reduces the essentials of colon and rectal cancer care to the most basic levels but with less success. Although the information is clearly presented and covers the standard areas of colon and rectal cancer care, it lacks the needed detail to benefit the reader. For example, the discussion about colostomy and its impact on sexual activity (an important subject to patients) glosses over the female point of view by simply observing, "Women normally have no loss of sexual function due to colostomy." Even though each chapter ends with the helpful "Questions To Ask the Doctor," one very important query is omitted: What is the standard/investigational treatment by stage? The glossary is also disappointing, offering explanations too simple to clarify important and difficult concepts. The American Cancer Society's Colorectal Cancer (1999) is the better choice. Not recommended. Gail Hendler, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Ctr., New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Colon and rectal cancers strike men and women equally, Ruggieri points out, and their causes aren't yet known. He relays what is known about the diseases, though, as well as their symptoms, the various diagnostic tests and procedures for them, and the stages of their progressions, which are important to determining treatment and prognosis. He discusses ways to cope with emotional aspects of the disease, especially those provoked by the prospect and the realities of a colostomy, which constitute one of the major worries of many people after they are diagnosed. He considers surgical and medical therapies carefully and provides practical suggestions, and he concludes with helpful chapters on prevention and early detection--the major weapon against such cancers--and on follow-up care. All told, Ruggieri's addition to Addicus' short and to-the-point consumer health books conforms to the high standards of its predecessors. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Addicus Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1886039518
• ISBN 13: 9781886039513
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160