Preface

When we first envisioned The MD Anderson Manual of Medical Oncology, we hoped that it would fill an important void in oncology reference material by serving as a hands-on resource for the practicing oncologist. The first edition, published in 2006, was written exclusively by our faculty and fellows with the idea of giving a bird's-eye view of how multidisciplinary care was practiced at our institution. We were proud of that initial effort and pleased that the book received positive reviews from several high-impact journals, including JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine.

The second edition, published in 2011, moved closer to the aims of providing more illustrations, figures, tables, and algorithms. In addition, the second edition included new chapters on myelodysplastic syndromes, Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms, T-cell lymphomas, small bowel cancer and appendiceal tumors, inflammatory breast cancer, and penile cancer.

In the third edition, we have continued the tradition of including evidence-based management algorithms in the form of flowcharts and diagrams, shaped by the clinical experience of our world-class faculty at MD Anderson. Readers are also provided with a practical guide to the diagnostic and therapeutic strategies used at MD Anderson.

The new edition of The MD Anderson Manual of Medical Oncology contains new chapters on cord blood transplant, haploidentical stem cell transplantation, cellular therapy in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, pediatric cancers, molecular biomarkers and cancer, immuno-oncology, targeted therapies in cancer, applied biostatistics, oncocardiology, pulmonary complications of cancer therapy, and cancer-associated thrombosis. In addition, there is expanded coverage of the rapidly growing areas of biological and immune therapies of cancer.

The new edition of The MD Anderson Manual of Medical Oncology will also be a continually updated version of the book, online, with the latest science and clinical recommendations from the world-renowned clinical investigators at MD Anderson.

We hope that this edition serves to help oncologists everywhere provide high-quality, state-of-the-art cancer care to their patients.