Book excerpt: By Prof.Dr.A.T.Van Oosterom Head of the Department of Oncology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium The word cancer defines over 180 different diseases. Some occurring quite often and are well known, others are very rare and sometimes so unknown that the diagnosis is not even suspected at operation. In this book, Dr.Debois, a retired radiation oncologist, describes a selected group of cancer types, some of which are difficult to find in the standard textbooks, in a logical format starting with their bibliography, history, incidence, anatomy, clinical presentation, diagnosis and staging, treatment and follow-up. For the general oncologist in the community it gives the appropriate data to understand the described diseases and to familiarize him with the peculiar patient he has identified. The many tables and figures in every chapter contain an enormous amount of data difficult to collect without extensive searches. The mix of historical and new (genetic) data makes reading attractive. In my opinion this book will find his place in the library of every oncologist who wants to know more about the rarer tumors he or she encounters. We know a lot about the common tumors but too little about the diseases described here.