Drawing on his long career studying cancer, American pathologist Berman explains that every cancer passes through an early stage during which it cannot metastasize or invade, and it is these relatively innocuous lesion that science and medicine are increasingly being able to diagnose and treat. He argues that if researchers focused their efforts more on curing precancers rather than advanced cancer, the number of people who die from cancer would drop precipitously. In sections on limitations to current cancer treatment approaches, precancer pathology and biology, and eradicating cancer by treating precancers, he discusses such details as why he and his colleagues have not learned how to cure advanced common cancers, a guide for lay readers to the pathologic examination of precancers, and the politics of precancers. He writes for specialists and nonspecialists in the health care industry and for general readers and policy makers with little technical background. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)