Making Cancer History

Making Cancer History PDF Author: James S. Olson
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 080189056X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
The history of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center vividly reveals how cancer treatment in America -- and our attitudes toward the disease -- has changed since the middle of the twentieth century. One of the preeminent cancer centers in the world, M. D. Anderson is also one of the first medical institutions devoted exclusively to caring for people with cancer and researching treatments and cures for the disease. Historian James S. Olson's narrative relates the story of the center's founding and of the surgeons, radiologists, radiotherapists, nurses, medical oncologists, scientists, administrators, and patients who built M. D. Anderson into the world-class institution it is today. Through interviews with M. D. Anderson's leaders and patients, Olson brings to life the struggle to understand and treat cancer in America. A cancer survivor who has himself been treated at the center, Olson imbues this history with humor, passion, and humanity. -- Helen Valier

Making Cancer History

Making Cancer History PDF Author: James S. Olson
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 080189056X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
The history of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center vividly reveals how cancer treatment in America -- and our attitudes toward the disease -- has changed since the middle of the twentieth century. One of the preeminent cancer centers in the world, M. D. Anderson is also one of the first medical institutions devoted exclusively to caring for people with cancer and researching treatments and cures for the disease. Historian James S. Olson's narrative relates the story of the center's founding and of the surgeons, radiologists, radiotherapists, nurses, medical oncologists, scientists, administrators, and patients who built M. D. Anderson into the world-class institution it is today. Through interviews with M. D. Anderson's leaders and patients, Olson brings to life the struggle to understand and treat cancer in America. A cancer survivor who has himself been treated at the center, Olson imbues this history with humor, passion, and humanity. -- Helen Valier

Her-2

Her-2 PDF Author: Robert Bazell
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307764982
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Two years after she underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy, Barbara Bradfield's aggressive breast cancer had recurred and spread to her lungs. The outlook was grim. Then she took part in Genentech's clinical trials for a new drug. Five years later she remains cancer-free. Her-2 is the biography of Herceptin, the drug that provoked dramatic responses in Barbara Bradfield and other women in the trials and that offers promise for hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, Herceptin has no disabling side effects. It works by inactivating Her-2/neu--a protein that makes cancer cells grow especially quickly-- produced by a gene found in 25 to 30 percent of all breast tumors. Herceptin caused some patients' cancers to disappear completely; in others, it slowed the progression of the disease and gave the women months or years they wouldn't otherwise have had. Herceptin is the first treatment targeted at a gene defect that gives rise to cancer. It marks the beginning of a new era of treatment for all kinds of cancers. Robert Bazell presents a riveting account of how Herceptin was born. Her-2 is a story of dramatic discoveries and strong personalities, showing the combination of scientific investigation, money, politics, ego, corporate decisions, patient activism, and luck involved in moving this groundbreaking drug from the lab to a patient's bedside. Bazell's deft portraits introduce us to the remarkable people instrumental in Herceptin's history, including Dr. Dennis Slamon, the driven UCLA oncologist who played the primary role in developing the treatment; Lily Tartikoff, wife of television executive Brandon Tartikoff, who tapped into Hollywood money and glamour to help fund Slamon's research; and Marti Nelson, who inspired the activists who lobbied for a "compassionate use" program that would allow women outside the clinical trials to have access to the limited supplies of Herceptin prior to FDA approval of the drug. And throughout there are the stories of the heroic women with advanced breast cancer who volunteered for the trials, risking what time they had left on an unproven treatment. Meticulously researched, written with clarity and compassion, Her-2 is masterly reporting on cutting-edge science.

Centers of the Cancer Universe

Centers of the Cancer Universe PDF Author: Donald L. Trump
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538144905
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title An important history of the development of cancer centers of excellence and the revolution in cancer treatment. In the 1960s a coalition of concerned citizens, scientists and politicians joined forces to convince the federal government to focus its efforts on conquering cancer. The National Cancer Act of 1971 resulted and was signed into law on December 23, 1971 by President Nixon. The national “War on Cancer,” was declared with some leaders naively arguing that the disease would be conquered by the nation’s bicentennial—a mere five years in the future. Over the next five decades scientific discoveries demonstrated the great complexity of what had formerly been thought of as a single disease – with the advent of the genetic characterization of cancers, it is now recognized that there are almost an infinite number of cancers as defined by their many genetic mutations. The National Cancer Act established the infrastructure for the designation of centers by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and these centers have evolved into models of multidisciplinary, collaborative cancer research, treatment and prevention contributing to a reduction in cancer mortality and increase in quality of life and survival that has translated into more than 17 million cancer survivors in the United States in 2021. Centers of the Cancer Universe: A Half-Century of Progress Against Cancer tells the story of how cancer research was not front and center at most universities and research institutions before the National Cancer Act of 1971, and why many physicians were reluctant even to treat patients with cancer in the early 20th century. It follows the behind-the-scenes lobbying, resistance and negotiating that preceded signing the Act into law, and how the cancer centers of today came to fruition, and shaped how cancer research, clinical trials and treatment would be conducted.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer

The Secret History of the War on Cancer PDF Author: Devra Davis
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0465015689
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
From the National Book Award finalist and author of "When Smoke Ran Like Water" comes this searing, haunting, and deeply personal account of how a major public health effort was diverted and distorted for private gain.

Making Cancer History

Making Cancer History PDF Author: James S. Olson
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421405318
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
The history of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center vividly reveals how cancer treatment in America—and our attitudes toward the disease—has changed since the middle of the twentieth century. One of the preeminent cancer centers in the world, M. D. Anderson is also one of the first medical institutions devoted exclusively to caring for people with cancer and researching treatments and cures for the disease. Historian James S. Olson’s narrative relates the story of the center’s founding and of the surgeons, radiologists, radiotherapists, nurses, medical oncologists, scientists, administrators, and patients who built M. D. Anderson into the world-class institution it is today. Through interviews with M. D. Anderson’s leaders and patients, Olson brings to life the struggle to understand and treat cancer in America. A cancer survivor who has himself been treated at the center, Olson imbues this history with humor, passion, and humanity.

Mill Town

Mill Town PDF Author: Kerri Arsenault
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250155959
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Winner of the 2021 Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award Winner of the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics John Leonard Prize for Best First Book Finalist for the 2021 New England Society Book Award Finalist for the 2021 New England Independent Booksellers Association Award A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Chicago Tribune top book for 2020 “Mill Town is the book of a lifetime; a deep-drilling, quick-moving, heartbreaking story. Scathing and tender, it lifts often into poetry, but comes down hard when it must. Through it all runs the river: sluggish, ancient, dangerous, freighted with America’s sins.” —Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland Kerri Arsenault grew up in the small, rural town of Mexico, Maine, where for over 100 years the community orbited around a paper mill that provided jobs for nearly everyone in town, including three generations of her family. Kerri had a happy childhood, but years after she moved away, she realized the price she paid for that childhood. The price everyone paid. The mill, while providing the social and economic cohesion for the community, also contributed to its demise. Mill Town is a book of narrative nonfiction, investigative memoir, and cultural criticism that illuminates the rise and collapse of the working-class, the hazards of loving and leaving home, and the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease with the central question; Who or what are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?

The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of All Maladies PDF Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439170916
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

Dynamics of Cancer

Dynamics of Cancer PDF Author: Steven A. Frank
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691186863
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The onset of cancer presents one of the most fundamental problems in modern biology. In Dynamics of Cancer, Steven Frank produces the first comprehensive analysis of how particular genetic and environmental causes influence the age of onset. The book provides a unique conceptual and historical framework for understanding the causes of cancer and other diseases that increase with age. Using a novel quantitative framework of reliability and multistage breakdown, Frank unifies molecular, demographic, and evolutionary levels of analysis. He interprets a wide variety of observations on the age of cancer onset, the genetic and environmental causes of disease, and the organization of tissues with regard to stem cell biology and somatic mutation. Frank uses new quantitative methods to tackle some of the classic problems in cancer biology and aging: how the rate of increase in the incidence of lung cancer declines after individuals quit smoking, the distinction between the dosage of a chemical carcinogen and the time of exposure, and the role of inherited genetic variation in familial patterns of cancer. This is the only book that presents a full analysis of the age of cancer onset. It is a superb teaching tool and a rich source of ideas for new and experienced researchers. For cancer biologists, population geneticists, evolutionary biologists, and demographers interested in aging, this book provides new insight into disease progression, the inheritance of predisposition to disease, and the evolutionary processes that have shaped organismal design.

The Genetics of Cancer

The Genetics of Cancer PDF Author: B.A. Ponder
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401106770
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
It has been recognized for almost 200 years that certain families seem to inherit cancer. It is only in the past decade, however, that molecular genetics and epidemiology have combined to define the role of inheritance in cancer more clearly, and to identify some of the genes involved. The causative genes can be tracked through cancer-prone families via genetic linkage and positional cloning. Several of the genes discovered have subsequently been proved to play critical roles in normal growth and development. There are also implications for the families themselves in terms of genetic testing with its attendant dilemmas, if it is not clear that useful action will result. The chapters in The Genetics of Cancer illustrate what has already been achieved and take a critical look at the future directions of this research and its potential clinical applications.

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England PDF Author: Alanna Skuse
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137487534
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC-BY licence. Cancer is perhaps the modern world's most feared disease. Yet, we know relatively little about this malady's history before the nineteenth century. This book provides the first in-depth examination of perceptions of cancerous disease in early modern England. Looking to drama, poetry and polemic as well as medical texts and personal accounts, it contends that early modern people possessed an understanding of cancer which remains recognizable to us today. Many of the ways in which medical practitioners and lay people imagined cancer – as a 'woman's disease' or a 'beast' inside the body – remain strikingly familiar, and they helped to make this disease a byword for treachery and cruelty in discussions of religion, culture and politics. Equally, cancer treatments were among the era's most radical medical and surgical procedures. From buttered frog ointments to agonizing and dangerous surgeries, they raised abiding questions about the nature of disease and the proper role of the medical practitioner.