EBOOK History of Lung Cancer
Opis
The Recalcitrant Disease
This is the first comprehensive history of lung cancer, once considered a rare condition and today the leading cause of cancer deaths world-wide. We are used to associating cancer treatment with scientific progress, but a patient diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013 is no more likely to survive the disease for five or more years than a patient undergoing lung cancer surgery in the 1950s. A breakthrough has remained elusive for this condition, now firmly associated with the smoking of cigarettes. Drawing on many unpublished and little-used sources, this book tells the history of lung cancer, of doctors and patients, hopes and fears, expectations and frustrations over the past 200 years, as a rare chest affliction transformed into a major killer. Suggesting that lung cancer is not the only recalcitrant disease, Timmermann asks what happens when medical progress does not seem to make much difference.
This is the first comprehensive history of lung cancer, once considered a rare condition and today the leading cause of cancer deaths world-wide. We are used to associating cancer treatment with scientific progress, but a patient diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013 is no more likely to survive the disease for five or more years than a patient undergoing lung cancer surgery in the 1950s. A breakthrough has remained elusive for this condition, now firmly associated with the smoking of cigarettes. Drawing on many unpublished and little-used sources, this book tells the history of lung cancer, of doctors and patients, hopes and fears, expectations and frustrations over the past 200 years, as a rare chest affliction transformed into a major killer. Suggesting that lung cancer is not the only recalcitrant disease, Timmermann asks what happens when medical progress does not seem to make much difference.