Breast Cancer

I am honored to write the Foreword for this first volume of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Care series, because I believe the book represents a milestone not only for M. D. Anderson but also for cancer specialists everywhere. All of us, whether we work in academic medical institu tions, medical school hospitals, community hospitals, oncology clinics, or solo practice, have seen remarkable changes in our practice over the recent decades. We know that breast cancer patients live longer, feel better, and look better than ever before, and they face this dreaded disease with more optimism than ever before. Each of us deserves to be proud of this progress. Though I am now primarily a laboratory scientist and admin istrator, I am proud of my own work on factors that control the growth of tumor cells, most prominently through regulation of EGF receptors and HER-2/neu, and the promise that work holds for women who have breast cancer. The authors represented in this volume have made important contri butions to breast cancer care. Likewise, every reader of this book has and will continue to make critical contributions to the health of women with breast cancer. I would like to express the hope here that each of us takes the opportunity to step outside our subspecialties-surgeon, internist, radiation oncologist, pathologist, radiologist, laboratory scientist-and learn how we can better integrate our work with that of other specialists.