The First Cell Reviews
The Medicine Memoirs That Every Aspiring Doctor Should Read
If Mukherjee’s Emperor is a broad biography of cancer, Raza’s book is a more intimate look at how people actually live with—and die from—this disease. One of the best things about this book is that it advocates that we see efforts to cope with the disease not in the context of war or battle, but from a more compassionate, scientific, and realistic point of view. Read more …
The Costs of Pursuing Cancer Cures
Jori May, MD
Fellow in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
In this edition, Jori May, MD, reviews The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last, in which hematologist-oncologist Azra Raza, MD, asks whether medicine and our society are approaching cancer the wrong way. Read more …
Book Review #1: The First Cell by Azra Raza
Health: Impatient for a cure for cancer
Anyone who has lost someone they love to cancer, which is everyone, is waiting for that day when we hear the news that science has found a cure. Not just a cure for some kinds of cancer in certain situations, or for cancer that is found early, but for all cancers, at any stage. That kind of cure.
That kind of cure has not come about yet, despite efforts that span human history and include Nixon’s war on cancer (1971) and the more recent “Cancer Moonshot” (2016). That kind of cure was not there when my grandma was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1998 and it was not there for my friend Roberta, who passed away of cancer last month. We are all still waiting for a comprehensive cure, and not patiently. Read more …
An Oncologist’s Thoughtful Examination of Cancer and Personal Loss
This is a good book that carefully weaves science, thoughtful critique, and humanity into a rich narrative.
The First Cell is highly recommended for readers of The ASCO Post. Read more …
Why we are losing war on cancer
The First Cell is a timely and necessary book that shows us where we err in handling the deadly disease. Azra Raza explores troubling subject and asks biting questions, calling for a new strategy to fight the deadly disease. She argues that the current strategy to fight cancer is to diagnose cancer at an early stage but we should try to be able to identify the transformed cancerous cells before they organize into a bona fide malignant, incurable disease. The current strategy and research are simply aimed at extending the life by a few months or maybe a few years. They don’t eradicate the disease. The First Cell will change the way we think about cancer and how to fight it. It will have a very positive impact on research in the field of cancer. That seems to be Azra Raza’s objective. Read more …
Winnipeg Free Press
Current cancer treatment system flawed
Dr. Azra Raza believes cancer research and treatment is on the wrong track.
In The First Cell Raza, a professor at Columbia University and oncologist for over 30 years, argues that most drugs being developed and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) end up buying patients only a few months of life at great cost and suffering. Meanwhile, research into the bio-markers of early stage cancers and pre-cancers is starved for funds. Read more …
The Healthcare Channel
Why cancer research should focus on patients
Dr Azra Raza, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University in New York, international authority on leukaemia, and Science Adviser to Safer Medicines Trust, has written a remarkable and highly recommended new book published in October 2019: The First Cell: And the human costs of pursuing cancer to the last
In amongst highly moving stories of her patients, including her own husband, Dr Raza explains why the global cancer research effort should make two major changes of direction:
1) to focus on prevention and early detection, to find the first malignant cell instead of attacking late-stage disease; and
2) to focus research exclusively on humans and their tissues, rather than on mice, rats and other futile animal models. … read more
Review Of Azra Raza’s “The First Cell”
When I was a young attending surgeon on the faculty in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, one of the things I got frequently called for was management of malignant pleural or pericardial effusions. Once a patient develops malignant pleural or pericardial effusion the median survival is only two months, so I would do things that would relieve the acute symptoms and perhaps try to prevent fluid from reaccumulating, but nothing drastic or major. One evening in late October, one of the nurses who had known me called to say that her father was being treated for lung cancer but had to be admitted with a large pleural effusion and that she and her father’s Oncologist would like me to manage it. I met the fine 72-year old retired banker, and while he was short of breath even as he talked, he was in a very upbeat mood. I decided to insert a chest tube to drain the pleural fluid and relieve his symptoms. As I was doing the procedure at the bedside the patient mentioned to me that his oncologist has assured him that once his fluid is out he will start him on a new regimen of chemotherapy and he should expect to live for a few more years. I was disturbed to hear the false hope he was being given. … read more
An Oncologist Asks When It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’
Richard Nixon declared the “War on Cancer” in 1971. Since then, survival rates have improved, thanks to early detection and smoking cessation. However, according to Raza (oncology, Columbia Univ.), our treatment methods have not changed. We still rely on surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Genetic therapy and other technological approaches that sounded promising have not resulted in benefits for most patients … read more
LIBRARY JOURNAL
VERDICT: This memorable work will be of interest to anyone who has been impacted by cancer, both patients and family and friends.
Richard Nixon declared the “War on Cancer” in 1971. Since then, survival rates have improved, thanks to early detection and smoking cessation. However, according to Raza (oncology, Columbia Univ.), our treatment methods have not changed. We still rely on surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Genetic therapy and other technological approaches that sounded promising have not resulted in benefits for most patients … read more
PUBLISHER WEEKLY REVIEW
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.” … read more
Raza served as her husband’s oncologist after his leukemia diagnosis and thus brings a deep level of knowledge, both personal and professional, to the subject of cancer.
Everett Jones, editor at Publishers weekly
KIRKUS REVIEW
A welcome argument that we are overdue for a change in the paradigm for treating cancer.
Raza (Medicine/Columbia Univ.) decries the “protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation—the slash-poison-burn approach to treating cancer” that has remained unchanged for decades.” She points out the billions spent on … read more