Supportive Care of Children with Cancer: Current Therapy and Guidelines From the Children*s Cancer Group

Because six of every seven children and adolescents with cancer can now be cured, the quality of life during and after treatment is displacing cure as the paramount objective. With this shift in emphasis, attention to supportive care in pediatric cancer therapy has become as important as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. In this book, now in its second edition, the discipline of supportive care in pediatric oncology is covered in depth.

Supportive Care of Children with Cancer is a ready-reference handbook designed for use at the hospital bedside, in the oncology outpatient clinic, or in the physician's office. Five new chapters have been added and significant revisions have been made in each of the others. The new chapters reflect new ideas in the management of heretofore incompletely understood mechanisms of hemorrhage and thrombosis, the recognition of the increasing numbers of patients with various kinds of transplants and the more prominent role their long-term follow-up plays in pediatric oncology, the socioeconomically driven rapid changes in the practice and delivery of health care, and the deservedly increased attention to the child with terminal illness. Other important changes in individual chapters continue to keep this bedside handbook current.

Approaches to supportive care were recommended by leading experts in each field, then critically reviewed by members of the Children's Cancer Group, the world's largest cooperative study group for children's cancer. For students, house officers, fellows, pediatric oncologists, surgeons, nurses, nutritionists, social workers, and psychologists, this book provides convenient access to essential information about the care of pediatric oncology patients.

"An excellent reference for a pediatric oncology unit as well as being as useful companion to nursing staff and medical staff and practicing oncologists." -- Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, reviewing the first edition

Arthur R. Ablin, M.D., is professor of clinical pediatrics at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.