search
for
 About Bioline  All Journals  Testimonials  Membership  News


Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics
Medknow Publications on behalf of the Association of Radiation Oncologists of India (AROI)
ISSN: 0973-1482 EISSN: 1998-4138
Vol. 1, Num. 2, 2005, pp. 115-115

Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics, Vol. 1, No. 2, April-June, 2005, pp. 115

Book Review

Fifty years of cancer control in India

Divya Shukla

Research Associate Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanavati Hospital,Mumbai-56. E mail : dr_divya22@rediffmail.com

Code Number: cr05025

An effort to bring out the first book on "Cancer control in India" by Dr. S. P. Agarwal is indeed praise-worthy considering the serious proportions, the disease has assumed in the country. The book is essentially a series of essays written by experts on different aspects of Cancer control in India.

The book begins with historical developments in cancer treatment dating back as far as 2500 BC and moves on to put the perspective of developing world. But hereafter the book suffers from the malady that books consisting of series of essays have. It mean-ders into sequentially misplaced topics with over-lapping contents. Thus, topics relating to cancer control are interspersed with those on technologi-cal advancement. For example, “Cancer registra-tion in India” is followed by “Cancer genetics” and “Molecular approaches to Cancer Management” but not by topics on cancer control programme and can-cer prevention. Similarily, after topics on role of tu-mour markers and evolution of radiotherapy ma-chines, the author once again comes back to “Can-cer control programme in Kerala”. The book thus fails to give a reader the feeling of smoothly flow-ing narrative on cancer control in India.

One also fails to understand how topics like “Choice of a teletherapy unit” fit into the scheme of the book. Even otherwise, the contents in the topics tend to overlap at times. Thus topics like “Addressing the cancer agenda”, “ National Cancer Control Pro-gramme”, “Cancer prevention and control in India” and “Cancer control in Kerala” have overlapping contents. “Cancer genetics” and “Molecular ap-proaches to cancer management”also sound more theoretical rather than pertaining to the Indian con-text.

Going deeper into the contents, the book gives a rich pool of information on cancer control and enu-merates few of the limitations of the National Can-cer Control Programme. A model for the successful implementation of the program has been outlined in the example shown by Kerala. The book however totally misses out on the analytical aspects of what has gone wrong with cancer control in the rest of the country.

There’s something in it for the curious or apprehensive patient too since an article by a cancer survivor serves to dispel a lot of myths relating to cancer and it’s management. The book would do well to serve as a ready reference for researchers, health administrators and students alike.

Copyright 2005 - Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics

Home Faq Resources Email Bioline
© Bioline International, 1989 - 2024, Site last up-dated on 01-Sep-2022.
Site created and maintained by the Reference Center on Environmental Information, CRIA, Brazil
System hosted by the Google Cloud Platform, GCP, Brazil