Cancer »

Every disease has a story to tell: about how it started long ago and beganto disable or even take the lives of its innocent victims, about the way it hurts us, and about how we are trying to stop it . In this Biographies of Disease series, the authors tell the stories of the diseases that we have come to know and dread.

The stories of these diesase have all of the compnents that make for great literature. There is incredible drama played out in real—life scenes from the past, present, and future. You'll read about how men and women of science stumbled trying to save the lives of those they aimed to protect. Turn the pages and you'll also learn about the amazing success of those who fought for health and won, often saving thousands of lives in the process.

If you dont want to be a health professional or research scientist now, when you finish this book you may think differently. The men and women in this book are heroes who often risked their own lives to save or improve ours. This is the biography of a disease,but it is also the story of real people who made incredible sacrifices to stop it in its tracks.

—Julie K. Silver, M.D. Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Library Journal

This slender volume offers a wealth of accessible information for lay readers seeking to understand cancer, its triggers, how it sustains itself, and how it can be fought. Pories (surgeon, Harvard Medical Sch.), Marsha A. Moses (Dir., Vascular Biology, Children's Hosp., Boston), and Margaret M. Lotz (researcher, Harvard Medical Sch.) organize the volume into six chapters, explaining cancer's complex mechanisms and following through from diagnosis to potential treatment failures. Illustrated sidebars eloquently explain tumor growth or profile the work of cancer research's most significant figures. Rounding out the book are a glossary of terms and a time line of treatment developments from ancient Egypt onward.