Foreword

When I was asked by Dr. Xiao Rong Sun and Dr. Jian Wang to write a foreword to their book about DNA Quantitative Cytology, I was very worried as I only know a few words in mandarin language. Worst still, I do not know any Chinese characters. Nevertheless, I accepted this challenge due to my long-term friendship to these two excellent scientists and clinicians as well as due to the importance of publishing such book.

A book on this subject has been long overdue in any language. It gives me great pleasure to seee that first such book is being published in China. A in many other fields, the Chinese people are starting to lead the way into future by boldly plowing into uncharted waters.

The authors have made an excellent choice of the key topics. In the first 2 chapters they addressed the principles and review of the methods of quantitative cytology based n the assessment of the DNA ploidy status of the cells. Then they give numerous examples of its use in different tissue malignancies such as uterine cervix, oral cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, and lung cancer. They also discuss use in fine needle aspirates of lymph nodes and urine samples.

Throughout their work they emphasize the importance of this approach to detection and netter diagnosis of early cancers and pre-cancerous lesions which makes this book even more interesting to cyto-pathologists that are interested in objective diagnosis of malignant diseases. They show numerous examples that are very easy to understand and follow both in text and illustrations.

Dr. Xiao Rong Sun and Dr. Jian Wang are true pioneers in this field. Their largest contribution has been not only in the discoveries of the new and improved methods, but even more importantly, how to bring these methods to routine clinical applications. I have been admiring their scientific and clinical work for many years and I congratulate both of them on this excellent achievement.

Branko Palcic

Dr. Branko Palcic, Professor Pathology and Physics，

University of British Columbia and Senior Scientist, BC

Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC, Canada.