Preface

On behalf of the M. D. Anderson Associates and the Division of Academic Programs, we are pleased to present this first volume in the M. D. Anderson Cancer Care series.

Each volume in this series will offer a detailed, comprehensive description of the M. D. Anderson approach to a particular type of cancer. We have chosen to emphasize the day-to-day aspects of practice, minimizing literature review and discussion of approaches not yet incorporated into routine practice. Each volume will describe not just screening, diagnosis, and treatment, but the entire range of related services available for a particular cancer site. Thus this first volume, which is devoted to breast cancer, includes chapters on prevention, genetic predisposition, rehabilitation, postmenopausal health, and management of gynecologic and sexual problems associated with breast cancer.

The care of breast cancer patients at M. D. Anderson has long been based upon a multidisciplinary approach, which involves specialists from multiple disciplines collaborating from the earliest stages of treatment planning to ensure that treatments for each individual patient are integrated in the most effective manner. The first chapter of this volume describes the basic structural framework that facilitates this multidisciplinary approach. In the remaining chapters, the authors have, whenever appropriate, described how specialists from multiple disciplines collaborate at various stages of decision-making and treatment delivery.

We believe that this description of breast cancer care at a major cancer center will be a valuable resource for physicians in other practice settings and an example for other multidisciplinary endeavors.

Aman U. Buzdar, M.D.
Ralph S. Freedman, M.D.