Vincent T. Devita
1 Cumbersome organization
Although the Devita text is a good resource, it has important drawbacks. In every edition, including the latest one, too much information has been out of date even at the first day of publication. Several other major oncology texts somehow manage to avoid this problem much better. Also, since the text comes out every two years, information in the current edition is already at least 3 years old or older. Beyond this, the index is detailed but it still is hard to find specific information, i.e., the book is clumsily organized. Finally, the CD version has the worst search program that I have ever used. You can enter information with any degree of specificity and the search will retrieve (at best) a list of chapters and major chapter sections in which to look. You then have to read through miles of text to find the information that you wanted. Searchability is one of the main reasons for buying a CD and I consider the Devita CD virtually worthless.
2 Simply THE source.
As a resident, I use this book as a first resource for almost all Oncology reading. By your second year of residency you should be getting a lot of your data from the literature rather than texts, but it is still very useful to have a text summery to start from. Take prostate cancer as an example. You can read the DeVita chapter in a (long) afternoon and have an excellent base to expand from. Furthermore, the hundreds of references for each chapter are essentially a list of every landmark article on that topic. If you are an intern or MS4 and you are going to go Rad-Onc, Internal then Med-Onc, OB-Gyn Onc, or even Surgery or Dermatology then you simply need this book. There is nothing else that comes close. To be honest, if you are building any type of medical library whatsoever, you need this book. By the way, mine came with the CD-Rom version on the inside of the back cover for free! Check with your retailer to see if yours will, too. Best of luck, study hard- CURE CANCER!
3 quit enough source
this book is considered one of the text...that make the specialest so much satisfied by the quality and quantity of the information it contain and the it is discussed. but for us in middle east it is very [pricey]. you will understand that when you know that my monthly salary as an assesstent lecturer inradiation oncology dept.; Alazhar university, Cairo, Egypt;... a low price edition will be much helpful and very wise to prevent illegal copying of the book. thanks a lote
4 Wonderful text for physicians and non-physicians alike.
This immensely readable text is a gold-mine for anyone interested in cancer. It is a blessing that this text exists for understanding the pathology, treatment and prognoses of various cancers
