Colon and Rectal Cancer: A Patient's Guide to Treatment »

Paul Ruggieri, MD, is chief of the department of surgery at St. Anne’s Hospital, Fall River, Massachusetts. He specializes in thyroid and minimally invasive surgery. He is the author of The Surgery Handbook—A Guide to Understanding Your Operation.

Have You Been Diagnosed with Colon Cancer?

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with colon cancer, you're probably already experiencing the whirlwind of emotions that come with a cancer diagnosis. You're worried and frightened. You're probably full of questions. You wonder how far the disease has advanced. What tests will you go through? What form of treatment will you undergo?

Surgeon Paul Ruggieri, M.D., understands such pressing questions, and offers answers that help bring peace of mind. In Colon & Rectal Cancer, Dr. Ruggieri covers such topics as:

• symptoms and risk factors for colon cancer
• medical tests for getting a diagnosis
• the importance of staging the cancer
• benefits and risks of various treatments
• surgery, radiation, chemotherapy how they work
• how colon cancer can be prevented

A Valuable Resource for Patients and Families!

Library Journal

Aimed at the patient and caregiver, this guide is authored by a board-certified general surgeon and thyroid specialist. Ruggieri's The Surgery Handbook (Addicus, 1999) was a good overview of what to expect during an operation. Here, he reduces the essentials of colon and rectal cancer care to the most basic levels but with less success. Although the information is clearly presented and covers the standard areas of colon and rectal cancer care, it lacks the needed detail to benefit the reader. For example, the discussion about colostomy and its impact on sexual activity (an important subject to patients) glosses over the female point of view by simply observing, "Women normally have no loss of sexual function due to colostomy." Even though each chapter ends with the helpful "Questions To Ask the Doctor," one very important query is omitted: What is the standard/investigational treatment by stage? The glossary is also disappointing, offering explanations too simple to clarify important and difficult concepts. The American Cancer Society's Colorectal Cancer (1999) is the better choice. Not recommended. Gail Hendler, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Ctr., New York Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.