I am delighted to read the excellent report by Drs. Sobia Ozair and Augustin C. Garcia on "Advances in Cervical Cancer." Although I have no occasion of treating patients with cervical cancer as I devote virtually all my time in treating hematological malignancies, for some reason this story on the front page of the Dec. 25 print issue of Oncology Times caught my eye and it was so engaging that I read it to the end, and I am glad that I did. I came away feeling good about learning about this malignancy which strikes women worldwide and which is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the Third World countries.

The authors deserve all your readers' gratitude for providing a summary which is written extremely well; it engages the reader virtually immediately once one has started reading it and then provides objective statistics, incidence, preventive vaccines, and current state of therapies, both effective and frustratingly ineffective and ends with a good summary of the ongoing therapeutic research.

In my opinion, whether one is actually dealing with patients with cervical cancer is not at all the issue, this brief report should indeed be a "must read" item for every professional in the health care field.

Oncology Times should be congratulated for publishing this report and we should thank Drs. Ozair and Garcia for writing it.

-Kanti Rai

Do you have thoughts you'd like to share about issues in the profession? Send your Letters to the Editor to Editor Pamela Tarapchak atmailto:[email protected].