The book provides science-based information for the medical community about herbal remedies, other dietary supplements, and non-mainstream products promoted as cancer treatments. Each herb or remedy description is accompanied by information as to its origin, most common uses, benefits, and risks/dangers. The book provides detailed information on over 250 remedies and describes their constituents, mechanisms of action, adverse reactions, pharmacokinetics, and contraindications. Information on each herb or other remedy was developed through careful and critical reviews of research conducted by experts in pharmacy, botanicals, and complementary therapies. Each herb or product is described in terms of the following sections: common name, scientific name, key words, clinical summary, herbal constituents, warnings, mechanisms of action, usage, adverse reactions, drug interactions, dosage, literature summary and critique, and notes. This book has the look and feel of a fine field guide to medicinal plants, thanks to the beautiful drawings by Angela Donato, and it will be of interest to a wide audience beyond the medical specialists, including cancer patients.

Dr. Cassileth is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair and Chief of the Integrative Medicine department at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)in New York City. She has an extensive medical leadership career and is a foremost authority on evidence-based complementary therapies in oncology. She is a staunch opponent to "cancer quackery"

Her work includes 180 publications in the medical literature, 46 medical textbook chapters, 11 authored books, and 12 publications for physicians, patients and families. She was a founding member of the Advisory Council to the U.S. National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine, now the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. She is Founding President of the Society for Integrative Oncology and has given multiple invited lectures around the world. Since joining MSKCC in 1999, Dr. Cassileth has established prototypic research, education and clinical programs in Integrative Medicine.