Evidence-based Paediatric Oncology is a new 430 page effort to ''review the surprisingly sparse information that is available for randomised trials in childhood cancer'' in the context of the Standard Options and Recommendations project of the National Federation of French Cancer Centers. This is a very important and timely effort that provides not only a review of the clinical trials that underpin our protocols, but also a very interesting historical perspective on the development of the protocols in use today. I will briefly review some of the features of this book and then comment on a few selected areas reviewed in the book.
The book is listed at $139 and comes as a hardback edition from BMJ books. The typeface is easy to read and the figures and tables seem to have been taken directly from the papers reviewed. Despite the occasional figure that is difficult to understand, I think that the book benefits from the presentation of the original data and results.
The book covers the major paediatric cancers in two parts, ''Solid Tumour'' and ''Leukaemia.'' The ''Solid Tumour'' section has 10 chapters and includes lymphomas. The ''Leukaemia'' section has two chapters devoted to questions in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapy and four chapters on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Each chapter is comprised by an Introduction followed by a series of studies. Each study is reviewed in several sections, including Objectives, Details of the Study, Outcome, Toxicity, and Conclusion.
In general, the book would benefit from careful editing and proofreading. While most of the study reviews adhere to a uniform structure, several study reviews lacked the ''Toxicity'' section, one did not have Details of the Study, and included a review of the statistical methods used. The writing style also varied, with some chapters using very colloquial expressions, which seemed out of place in a scientific discussion of randomised clinical trials. I also noted multiple typographical errors, most notably in the name of the book's website, which is listed as www.evidencebased_paediatriconcology, but is in fact www.evidencebasedpaediatriconcology.com. The actual website was easily found by several internet search engines. At present, the website only contains the material printed in the book. The ''Updates'' section is not yet