Order Alert: Information Overload on Breast Cancer
Describing the major developments in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment over recent years, Dr. Elisa Port, a surgeon who specializes in the disease, talked to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air this week.
Her book, The New Generation Breast Cancer Book: How to Navigate Your Diagnosis and Treatment Options-and Remain Optimistic-in an Age of Information Overload (RH/Ballantine; OverDrive Sample) is getting widespread attention from sources as diverse as InStyle magazine and Woman’s Day and is likely to get more as Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins in October.
Port discusses new treatments, drugs, and care routines for those diagnosed with the disease as well as some of the current hot topic issues such as genetic testing and 3-D mammograms.
She tells Gross she wrote the book due to the amazing change in access to information for patients:
Thirty years ago no one even used the words “breast cancer” in public. Twenty years ago you couldn’t even find an advertisement with the word “breast” in it, and you flash forward to times like today, where there’s absolutely no shortage of information out there and the problem no longer is lack of information, it’s actually too much information. [Patients] were coming [into my office] inundated, defeated, completely perplexed by all the information out there and how to navigate it, whether it was emails from friends, whether it was websites they needed to read. I thought there was a need for a new type of book, a new generation of book for a new generation — the age of information overload.