A spate of new textbooks on breast disease have been published during the past few years. The field may now be overpopulated. A good update of an earlier book, however, is always welcome.
In the third edition of Cancer of the Breast, editors William Donegan and John Spratt have assembled 29 other authors, half of them from Louisville, who write of relevant, timely changes in the approach to breast cancer. New material is frequent. The full spectrum of clinical care and much of the related basic science are covered. Controversy has not been covered up. One of the editors, for instance, challenges the widely held belief that screening mammography will reduce the risk of dying of breast cancer.
One of the best chapters in the book is not about new developments. It is a history of breast cancer written by Dr Donegan. The alternating views of breast cancer as primarily