Customer Reviews

Breast Imaging

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All of us in radiology know Dr. Kopans. His book is great for fellows and can be useful for residents. Make sure you purchase the third edition; the chapter on MRI was rewritten.

I am a physician interested in women's breast health. I found this textbook to be an amazing wealth of information. It is well written and practical, not overly laden with statistics and facts that clutter up pages of information. It is clear, concise and to the point. With all the rhetoric about breast cancer, and treating every case aggressively, it was refreshing to see statements like these reinforced by a medical text book:

"It is fairly clear that not all breast cancers are lethal. Of course, DCIS is rarely lethal (less than 1%) but even invasive breast cancers may be indolent."

"Many breast cancers will not be lethal even if they are not detected early...As our screening tests become more sensitive and begin to find smaller cancers, the number of cancers that have no lethal potential may increase. It will become increasingly important to develop ways to determine which of those cancers may or may not be lethal so that we do not overtreat nonlethal lesions."

"Even the fastest-growing tumors were present and undiscovered for 9 years before reaching 2cm, while the slowest-growing lesions may have been developing in the breast for as long as 29 years."

Truly, the identification of a breast cancer is not a 5-alarm fire. No one is bleeding or choking to death. Women have time to get second opinions, consider the correct course of treatment, consider their options. The rush from the mammogram suite to the surgical suite is extreme and unnecessary.

I have enjoyed this text. Much of it is highlighted, underlined and tabbed with sticky notes. While written by a radiologist, it is not just about "imaging." It is written in language that can be fully understood by all physicians and even lay persons who are investigating/researching all elements of the conventional approach to breast disease.

The reason for the 4-star instead of a 5-star rating is that not one word was written about the value of infrared breast imaging and the important role it should play in women's breast health. The text books, Medical Devices and Systems (The Biomedical Engineering Handbook, Third Edition) and Medical Infrared Imaging have hundreds of studies and mainstream documentation that has been ignored. Breast thermography is a way to identify very early physiological changes that can be addressed, removing inflammation, restoring health to the tissues and lowering the risk for development of mammogram-evident cancer. This text, while called "Breast Imaging" sadly does not include infrared imaging which should become a core part of all screening.