WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT CANCER

by R.J.C.--Ed. Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 15, 1972

Via Britain, a series of related articles on cancer designed to coordinate the ""different levels of concern,"" not only scientific but also between the professions and the public, and between the countries pursuing various lines of research. The opening chapters will be difficult for those without medical knowledge, as they deal with the nature of cancer (not a disease) in biochemical and physicochemical terms and the earlier and current directions of research. There is a chapter on the environment and its carcinogenic factors (food, drugs, radiation, and above all and again and again, smoking); on the management of the disease through surgery (limited), radiotherapy and chemotherapy via which -- in each case -- three types of cancer are relatively controllable. Closing chapters deal with detection clinics and their importance, as well as the social attitudes toward this disease with its dangerous climate of avoidance and overanxiety. The book informs in antiseptically factual terms which is, after all, its intention and that omnipresent cancerphobe will find little to reassure him unless it might be that ""early primary cancer never killed anyone."" What we know, after all, is depressingly little.

Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION