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A History of Lung CancerStill Recalcitrant? Some Conclusions

A History of Lung Cancer: Still Recalcitrant? Some Conclusions [Lung cancer, as I have shown in this book, is more than one disease. Statistically, lung cancer remains the main cause of cancer deaths in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, and while mortality and incidence trends are pointing downward for the industrialized west, this is not the case in developing countries. Lung cancer is the tenth most common cause of death worldwide, and epidemiologists expect it to move up rather than down.1 Lung cancer is also more than one disease where its biology and natural history are concerned: as cancer specialists know, no tumour is like the other and all patients are different. But as a historian I have been interested in the meanings of the disease. I have shown in this book how multiple identities of lung cancer have emerged over the past two centuries. In the nineteenth century it has emerged as a specific, local disease of the lung (rather than a nonspecific fever), and then a disease of cells. In the early twentieth century it turned into a disease treated mostly by surgeons, who could operate on an open thorax only when anaesthetists had developed the technology. Over the course of the twentieth century it acquired the image of a condition where modern treatment modalities such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy commonly failed to save patients’ lives, with lung cancer sufferers constituting the largest contingent of cancer patients in hospices. Most prominently, as a result of epidemiological studies and public health policy, this is a disease firmly associated with the habit of smoking cigarettes. I have mostly dealt with Britain and to some degree the United States in this book; the history of this recalcitrant disease in other parts of the world is an important story that will add further layers of meaning but needs to be told by somebody else.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A History of Lung CancerStill Recalcitrant? Some Conclusions

Part of the Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History Book Series
Timmermann, Carsten
Springer Journals — Nov 14, 2015
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5 pages

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014
ISBN
978-1-349-54187-4
Pages
171 –176
DOI
10.1057/9781137384232_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Lung cancer, as I have shown in this book, is more than one disease. Statistically, lung cancer remains the main cause of cancer deaths in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, and while mortality and incidence trends are pointing downward for the industrialized west, this is not the case in developing countries. Lung cancer is the tenth most common cause of death worldwide, and epidemiologists expect it to move up rather than down.1 Lung cancer is also more than one disease where its biology and natural history are concerned: as cancer specialists know, no tumour is like the other and all patients are different. But as a historian I have been interested in the meanings of the disease. I have shown in this book how multiple identities of lung cancer have emerged over the past two centuries. In the nineteenth century it has emerged as a specific, local disease of the lung (rather than a nonspecific fever), and then a disease of cells. In the early twentieth century it turned into a disease treated mostly by surgeons, who could operate on an open thorax only when anaesthetists had developed the technology. Over the course of the twentieth century it acquired the image of a condition where modern treatment modalities such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy commonly failed to save patients’ lives, with lung cancer sufferers constituting the largest contingent of cancer patients in hospices. Most prominently, as a result of epidemiological studies and public health policy, this is a disease firmly associated with the habit of smoking cigarettes. I have mostly dealt with Britain and to some degree the United States in this book; the history of this recalcitrant disease in other parts of the world is an important story that will add further layers of meaning but needs to be told by somebody else.]

Published: Nov 14, 2015

Keywords: Breast Cancer; Lung Cancer; Palliative Care; Lung Cancer Patient; Magic Bullet

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