Dr. Purnima Shukla, presently working as consultant (H) in H.T. C., Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, is a graduate from National Homoeopathic Medical College, Lucknow, M.D. & Ph.D. (Homoeo) from Jaipur Homoeopathy University & M.B.A. in health care administration from F.M.S. Delhi University with experience of more than 39 years in classical homoeopathy.

She has an unquenchable thirst for research in the specified field of female diseases including breast ailments which are well reflected by her more than 35 research presentations and publications. She travelled to more than 20 countries & delivered guest lectures for the upliftment of evidence-based research work in Homeopathy. She has participated in various National and International conferences and CMEs, and chaired the sessions in India and abroad. She has also organized conferences, public awareness programs & Government sponsored workshops along with participation in drug-proving programs organized by CCRH.

She has authored the chapter "Preventive and Curative Homoeopathic care for Senior Citizen" in the book "Healthy Life in Platinum years of Life and Thereafter" published by CSIR Pensioner's Welfare Association.

She also served as a nominated member of the Ethical committee, CCRH, Ministry of AYUSH, Govt of India. She was also a Member of the Editorial Board, Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy (IJRH), an official, peer-reviewed, online publication of Govt. of India. She has also worked as a Project Officer, in research projects on Encephalitis at B.R.D. Medical College, Gorakhpur by the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy. She also worked as Principal investigator in Central Govt. funded project "Benign neoplastic lesions of breast and its homoeopathic management" in collaboration with B.R.D. Medical college, Gorakhpur (U.P.).

She is a Life member of various organizations like LIGA, AHML and HMAI. She has also served as a member of the working group of the scientific committee of the International chapter and a member of the Executive Committee, LMHI Indian Chapter.

Her efforts in these academic activities are always to bring Homoeopathy in the mainstream of scientific research by means of evidence obtained by pathological and radio-diagnostic tools with the main focus on a Holistic approach while dealing with the ailing humanity.

Breast cancer is a growing menace in the domain of medical science. It has been a great challenge to the practitioners of all systems of treatment. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are mostly the treatment choices in the conventional medicine. But adverse effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in patients suffering from breast carcinoma are also alarming. In this context, some patients seek homoeopathic treatment, either before administration of radiotherapy/ chemotherapy to get relief from these adverse effects.

The author of the book "Homoeopathy: Curative, Concurrent and Supportive Potential in Breast Cancer", Dr. Purnima Shukla, has been showing keen interest in the treatment of such adverse effects, for so many years. She has also done research on the topic "Homoeopathic management as add-on-therapy to mitigate adverse effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in breast carcinoma: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study", during her PhD course in Homoeopathy University, under my guidance.

This book contains ten chapters, including principles of Homoeopathy, homoeopathic approach for treatment of chronic diseases including breast cancer; actiopathogenesis, conventional treatment approach including radiotherapy and chemotherapy and their adverse effects; scope of homoeopathic management of such adverse effects; review of research studies on the role of homoeopathic treatment of adverse effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, etc. The author has given special emphasis on homoeopathic management of such adverse effects from her own experience as well as available literature.

Even if a senior citizen, Dr. Shukla has great passion for learning, reading, and writing articles and books. I am confident, this book written by her will be immensely beneficial for the homoeopathic professionals including clinicians, teachers, researchers, and students.

I pray the Almighty to bless Dr. Shukla a long healthy and active life to contribute for the upliftment of homoeopathic profession.

In the opening sentence of homoeopathy's founding document, Samuel Hahnemann declares his conviction that the patient's well-being is the only vital consideration in medicine. Debates about medical theories and the economics of health care have meaning only when considering the patient's health; if it doesn't help the patient in some way, it doesn't matter. Conversely, if it does help the patient, it must not be withheld. Like many of the best ideas, this one is obvious. Unfortunately, sometimes we forget even obvious truths.

The major goal of this book is to educate public medical and health care professionals with relevant and balanced knowledge regarding homoeopathy and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in general. For various reasons, this is an ambitious and challenging task. Homoeopathy and the CAM systems described here provide advantages to patients who are not totally accessible through standard medicine and are difficult to explain in traditional terms.

Furthermore, the unifying themes or concepts that run across these ystems remain undifferentiated from the overwhelming belief that unmet patient needs may be fulfilled outside of traditional medicine. Furthermore, homoeopathy and CAM have a long history of bitter rivalry; varied levels of education, training, and practice; and a lack of agreement on what constitutes adequate proof of safety and efficacy.

Faced with these challenges, we have sought the leading experts in these diverse areas to contribute to this textbook and have worked with them to provide balanced information for the conventional practitioner.

This book is intended to serve as a resource for practicing physicians and health care professionals, as well as medical and health professionals, students and postgraduates enrolled in homoeopathy and CAM courses. Although it was intended to be a reduced version of the textbook, it rapidly became clear that this goal would be best served by containing profiles of just the most popular complementary therapies.

The breast cancer field is continuously developing, and smaller books that may be updated more frequently are of therapeutic benefit to practitioners, particularly those without access to a multidisciplinary clinic. We have tried in this book to provide enough current and clinically useful information for all subspecialists who routinely care for breast cancer and breast disease, and have included dedicated breast surgery, radiation, and medical approaches, recognizing the importance of multidisciplinary management. An attempt has been made to make the reader, well conversant with modern treatment modalities of carcinoma breast along with better understanding and interpretation of the reports obtained by modern diagnostic tools and techniques.