The following review was contributed by S.V.SWAMY

Winning the Hepatitis C Battle is an extremely reader-friendly book, meant for patients, supporters,doctors and health-care professionals - in short, any one who needs to know about hepatitis C and the treatment options against it. Written by Dr.Shekhar Challa, M.D., Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist, the book provides a single-stop handy reference to patients and their families/friends, when the diagnosis of Hepatitis C comes up first. It helps the other health-care professionals, physicians and yes, even the specialists by saving his/her valuable time and energy in explaining to the patients/supporters, the many questions that are bound to arise in the context of such a diagnosis.

With the help of a beautifully produced and easy-to-understand book and an interactive CD-ROM, Dr.Challa and his team explain all that a person needs to normally know about this Silent Epidemic.

The book starts right from the beginning, that is the Diagnosis, then explains the seat of action - the Liver, its functions, the differences between Hepatitis A, B,...E, specific signs, symptoms and complications of Hepatitis C. It then goes on to the treatment options, and looks at the alternative treatment and special situations.

The book has FAQs,Glossary, links to useful websites and an Index. All in all, the book is a complete handy reference guide to the Successful Treatment of Hepatitis C.

Dr.Challa brings out the various advances in treatment options including as-on-today, the most successful combination of pegylted interferon and Ribavarin. But he brings out that the most important ingredients in the treatment protocol and which only the patient can supply are courage and optimism. These in fact, give the desire to live to the patient.Without that desire, even the best physician can't help. So, what ever may be the stage of the disease, beginning, advanced, or resistant to the standard treatment, the message is simple - never give up.

Coming from a main stream gastroenterologist, the treatment of the chapter 6, Herbs and Alternative Medicine is fairly unbiased and this reviewer didn't expect a more active support to or detailed coverage of an important topic. Though not medically qualified, this reviewer has a long association and interaction with health-care professionals including those from the alternative systems and is thus aware of man successful treatment options. But to be fair to the author, Dr.Challa doesn't forbid you from following the alternative treatment route. He could have avoided the statement, ""Even though it is clear that alternative medicine therapy has minimal or no role in treatment of hepatitis C, ..."" and instead, could have offered to work with such patients who need to take the alternative treatment route for any reason, including the problem of side-effects, the enormous expenditure or the ineffectiveness of the Standard Treatment.

This book is primarily meant for the US Market, and hence discusses the statistics of Hepatitis C in USA, and the examples of the Patient Case Studies are also from USA. The basic principles of Hepatitis are of course common and aplicable to any one any where in the world. To that extent, this book will be of interest to the rest of the world.

One attractive feature of the CD-ROM (which is bundled with the book) is the incorporation of a Cross Word Puzzle to test the user of his/her understanding of the subject. The CD-ROM addresses the same subjects dealt with in the book, but will be found to be useful to those who don't like to read or understand better from an inter-active Audio-Assisted Video presentation of the subject. The book, on the other hand, will be appreciated by people like this reviewer, who found it sllightly difficult to follow the American accent. The book is well produced and is a pleasure to work through. Together, the Book+CD provide a good value to the buyer. It makes for a good gift to oneself or to some one who you think will benefit.

In conclusion, this reviewer would like to compliment Dr.Challa for bringing out a readable, reliable and affordable (for the US Market) publication on one of the major Health concerns.