This book offers a state-of-the-art report on recent discoveries concerning viral, bacterial, and parasite infectious cancers. Cancer is one of the most common causes of death and diseases in human populations, and 15%-25% of human cancers in worldwide are considered to result from chronic infection by pathogens. Most oncology textbooks address genetic mutation, but not infectious agents such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. As such this book stimulates further research in the new area between cancers and chronic infection, and discusses the epidemiology and molecular biology of infectious causes of cancers. It also explores the prevention and treatment of infection-related cancers, and brings pathogenic research to the forefront in the never-ending endeavor to understand how pathogens maneuver and negotiate in a complex environment, including the micro/macro- environment of the human host. Further, it highlights the urgent need for a concerted program to develop vaccines and other diagnosis and interventions that will eventually help prevent and treat infectious cancers, and decrease their burden on human populations. It offers graduate students and researchers a comprehensive overview of the infectious causes of cancers.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is highly endemic for several neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including viral, bacterial, protozoan and helminth infections. This new volume covers the most prevalent NTDs found in about 22 MENA countries emphasizing the disease burden, clinical manifestations and control approaches. Each individual chapter deals with one specific disease and is written by a group of experts on that topic.

This comprehensive account of the human herpesviruses provides an encyclopedic overview of their basic virology and clinical manifestations. This group of viruses includes human simplex type 1 and 2, Epstein–Barr virus, Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, HHV6A, 6B and 7, and varicella-zoster virus. The viral diseases and cancers they cause are significant and often recurrent. Their prevalence in the developed world accounts for a major burden of disease, and as a result there is a great deal of research into the pathophysiology of infection and immunobiology. Another important area covered within this volume concerns antiviral therapy and the development of vaccines. All these aspects are covered in depth, both scientifically and in terms of clinical guidelines for patient care. The text is illustrated generously throughout and is fully referenced to the latest research and developments.

This book will serve as a primer for both laboratory and field scientists who are shaping the emerging field of molecular epidemiology. Molecular epidemiology utilizes the same paradigm as traditional epidemiology but uses biological markers to identify exposure, disease or susceptibility. Schulte and Perera present the epidemiologic methods pertinent to biological markers. The book is also designed to enumerate the considerations necessary for valid field research and provide a resource on the salient and subtle features of biological indicators.

The Epstein-Barr virus was discovered 15 years ago. Since that time an immense body of information has been accumu lated on this agent which has come to assume great signifi cance in many different fields of biological science. Thus, the virus has very special relevance in human medicine and oncology, in tumor virology, in immunology, and in mole cular virology, since it is the cause of infectious mononu cleosis and also the first human cancer virus, etiologically related to endemic Burkitt's lymphoma and probably to nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In addition, continuous human lymphoid cell lines initiated and maintained by the transform ing function of the virus genome provide a laboratory tool with wide and ever-growing applications. Innumerable papers on the Epstein-Barr virus have ap peared over recent years and reports of work with this agent now constitute a veritable flood. The present book provides the first and only comprehensive, authoritative over-view of all aspects of the virus by authors who have been the original and major contributors in their particular disciplines. A complete and up-to-date survey of this unique and important agent is thus provided which should be of great interest to experts, teachers, and students engaged in cancer research, virology, immunology, molecular biology, epide miology, and cell culture. Where topics have been dealt with from more than one of these viewpoints, some inevitable overlap and duplication has resulted; although this has been kept to a minimum, it has been retained in some places because of positive usefulness.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common human cancers. Its association with chronic hepatitis B and C virus infections is well established. As one of the first human cancers to be etiologically associated with any virus, it provides a model for studying viral carcinogenesis in humans. The latest concepts in molecular biology have been brought to bear on the study of HCC and have led to dramatic breakthroughs in our understanding of how it develops.