The purpose of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Advances in Pediatric Oncology for the Cancer Treatment and Research Series is to provide an up-to-date summary of how recent advances in cancer research are being applied to the care of children with solid tumors. The interface of cancer research with clinical practice in pediatric oncology has never been more intimate than today. While researchers are identifying oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes and are studying their specific functions, clinicians are using knowledge of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes for diagnosing cancer in children, for therapeutic decision-making purposes, and for prognostic purposes. The first three chapters in this book describe models for understanding the causes of childhood cancer that were perhaps initially identified by clinicians and that are now being studied and understood by researchers. These chapters will describe research evidence that supports roles for the involvement of normal developmental regulatory genes in childhood oncogenesis, of abnormal immune regulation in childhood oncogenesis, and of heredity in childhood oncogenesis. The next eight chapters are devoted to descriptions of the appli cation of new research developments to clinical practice with reference to the most common forms of solid tumors of childhood outside the central nervous system. The final chapter will describe late effects of childhood cancer and its therapy and the impact research is having on understanding and perhaps preventing these late effects.

Since the late 1960s, the survival rate in children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer has steadily improved, with a corresponding decline in the cancer-specific death rate. Although the improvements in survival are encouraging, they have come at the cost of acute, chronic, and late adverse effects precipitated by the toxicities associated with the individual or combined use of different types of treatment (e.g., surgery, radiation, chemotherapy). In some cases, the impairments resulting from cancer and its treatment are severe enough to qualify a child for U.S. Social Security Administration disability benefits. At the request of Social Security Administration, Childhood Cancer and Functional Impacts Across the Care Continuum provides current information and findings and conclusions regarding the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of selected childhood cancers, including different types of malignant solid tumors, and the effect of those cancers on childrenâ (TM)s health and functional capacity, including the relative levels of functional limitation typically associated with the cancers and their treatment. This report also provides a summary of selected treatments currently being studied in clinical trials and identifies any limitations on the availability of these treatments, such as whether treatments are available only in certain geographic areas.

This volume provides in a conveniently accessible package a comprehensive collection of accurate and timely information on the management of patients with diarrhea, both in pediatric age and in the adult. As medical knowledge has recently expanded in this area, this volume is full of new practical, clinically useful material for the busy clinician. Illustrations are emphasized to permit rapid acquisition of practical information that is not readily available in the major texts. Each chapter is concise, concentrating on "clinical pearls," and new advances in diagnostic and therapeutic technology. Each chapter discusses the relative costs of diagnostic and therapeutic options to permit financial considerations to be taken into account in the decision making process. Additional unique features include, summaries of key points, recommendations, and indications for requesting GI subspecialty consultation. Providing a comprehensive but practical overview of the issues surrounding the diarrheal diseases, this volume will prove of great value and utility to gastroenterologists, surgeons, internists, primary care physicians.

There is no field of medicine in which advances in therapy have been so closely linked to a better understanding of molecular medicine than in the area of hematologic malignancies. Diagnostic and Therapeutic Advances in Hematologic Malignancies will provide practitioners and academic clinicians with a better understanding of the constant evolving concepts in this area.

Cancer Informatics in Post-Genomic Era provides both the necessary methodology and practical information tools for analyzing data in the field of medical information science. This, of course, requires analytic tools. Those tools are garnered by developing and assessing methods and systems for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of patient data, aided by scientific discovery. Key challenges in this field include integrating research and clinical care, sharing data, and establishing partnerships within and across sectors of patient diagnosis and treatment.

Brain metastases are the most dreaded complication of systemic cancer, affecting some 170,000 people a year, a far greater incidence than primary brain tumors. This book presents current information on the presentation and management of patients with brain metastases, providing available data, giving guidelines that can be applied in day to day practice, updated information for neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, and neuron-oncologists, and as an overview for physicians in training.