Breast Cancer and Molecular Medicine

by Madjackfrost on October 14, 2009

Why should you buy another book on breast cancer? Don’t you already have enough breast cancer books on your shelf? Editors have attempted to create a different kind of breast cancer book. Although the typical breast cancer book is written as a compendium of diagnoses and treatments, the focus of this book is on the present and future of breast cancer research and treatment, with an emphasis on translational research.

Breast cancer treatment is moving increasingly toward laboratory based, targeted therapies that are tailored to the individual patient. The treatment of breast cancer, and probably all cancers, will likely soon be practiced in this radically different fashion. The tsunami wave of laboratory and translational research that is already under way will soon alter the management of breast cancer in fundamental ways, and in fact, is already influencing the way in which we think about treating breast cancer patients and performing research.

Research into clinical, laboratory, and translational aspects of breast cancer has improved enormously our ability to treat and cure patients with this disease. Population-based data (for example, from the USA and the UK) document a substantial decrease in the mortality from breast cancer in the last decade, notwithstanding an increase in the incidence of breast cancer detection, attesting to the benefit in human terms from this research. Authors believe that this downward trend in mortality is only the beginning.

What makes this book unique is that it considers a wide range of relevant and exciting areas of clinical, translational, and basic research for their potential for clinical application today as well as for transforming future breast cancer treatment. If the history of scientific discovery is any guide, then some, but not all, of these research areas will prove valuable for patient care, and the remainder will fall by the wayside. However, no one can predict today which of these research areas will have the most impact on treating patients in the years to come.

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