WHEN YOU NEED HELP WITH CANCER

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 8, 1973

You wonder whether the authors, both affiliated with the leading M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, chose this cruelly deceptive title for a book which -- from the initial statement that cancer is ""a strange, loathsome and destructive disease"" to the final four autopsy reports on six of the patients whose cases are discussed here -- does not promise much ""help with cancer."" (Except for the listings at the dose of American Cancer Society offices and the available Consultation & Treatment Services -- city by state.) Blunt fact follows disheartening conclusion: no more than half of the cancer victims can be cured; little is known about the disease -- actually a variety of diseases; much too much false optimism re ""breakthroughs"" permeates the media; treatments are partial (chemotherapy often ""wrongly, poorly or inadequately used"") for diagnoses reached too late; or as one doctor who appears here says -- ""what a tough organism a cancer is. . . . And it usually wins."" The six composite cases thread the procedures from private doctor to hospital, from diagnostic and laboratory approaches to research, but the authors in the interest of the truth they are serving leave little room for hope, personal or collective. At this time.

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION