Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

The First Cell

And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
A world-class oncologist's devastating and deeply personal examination of cancer We have lost the war on cancer. We spend $150 billion each year treating it, yet — a few innovations notwithstanding — a patient with cancer is as likely to die of it as one was fifty years ago. Most new drugs add mere months to one's life at agonizing physical and financial cost. In The First Cell, Azra Raza offers a searing account of how both medicine and our society (mis)treats cancer, how we can do better, and why we must. A lyrical journey from hope to despair and back again, The First Cell explores cancer from every angle: medical, scientific, cultural, and personal. Indeed, Raza describes how she bore the terrible burden of being her own husband's oncologist as he succumbed to leukemia. Like When Breath Becomes Air, The First Cell is no ordinary book of medicine, but a book of wisdom and grace by an author who has devoted her life to making the unbearable easier to bear.
  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      World-renowned professor of oncology and related specialties, Azra Raza has written a devastating critique of current treatments for cancer. Narrator Sheherzad Preisler, the author's daughter, takes a deliberate, almost clinical, approach that drives the author's message home. Through painful anecdotes and historical analyses Preisler states that modern cancer treatments are most often too late and crippled by doctrinaire treatment approaches. The diseases themselves develop into an unstoppable series of bankrupting and agonizing horrors. She demonstrates that there is hope, however, through research innovations that would detect cancer at its earliest cellular stage--hence, her title, THE FIRST CELL. Preisler's narration is clinical, but the viewpoint expressed is profound and propelled by realistic hope. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from August 19, 2019
      Raza, a Columbia University professor of medicine and practicing oncologist, offers a passionate account of how humans grapple with the scourge of cancer. She masterfully explains how her research science work intersects with her job treating dying patients on a daily basis: “Nowhere is the science of medicine replaced by the art of caring as in the final days of a terminal illness.” She also explains why using animal models to search for new cancer treatments is unlikely to work, as cancer is so variable and dependent on the specific environment in which it grows. Meanwhile, most new cancer drugs, if they work at all, add months to life and are accompanied by severe costs, both financial and physiological. Her message is as simple as it is paradigm-shifting: rather than trying to kill every last cancer cell, medicine needs to focus on finding the first occurring cancer cells. Progress is being made on this front, she shows, but only a small percentage of available research dollars are being spent on it. Showing that compassion is just as important for cancer patients as the drugs administered to them, Raza’s deeply personal work brings understanding and empathy to the fore in a way that a purely scientific explication never could. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Loading