Next up on the cancer reading list: "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. An absolute must read whether you are a physician, a cancer patient, or just love biographies. This one is a doozy.
The entire history of cancer - from its first appearance in hieroglyphics, to the development of the radical mastectomy, to the most recent drug advances - this book chronicles it all. If you don't understand cancer biology, you will have a better understanding after reading this book. If you don't understand how drugs and treatments are developed and tested, you will after reading this book.
Cancer has been around as long as humans have been. What makes it such a terrible and terrifying disease is that it is not an other - not a bacteria, a virus, a parasite, a poison. It is US - our own cells, our own genetics gone haywire, our own bodies betraying us. And this "US"-ness of cancer is what makes it so hard to cure or treat. We can't kill cancer without killing us, so far, and that is what makes cancer the emperor of all maladies.
If you are scared that cancer research is languishing despite its funding, and that there haven't been many broad, meaningful breakthroughs since immunotherapy was developed, you will find reasons for your fear in this book.
If you are a clinician, you will be fascinated by the trajectory of this disease, as old as humanity itself, and by our inability to crack the code of cancer. It is a humbling, educating, daunting read. I only cried once, on the last page. For a cancer patient, getting through a 400+ page book about cancer without crying was a big feat.
Most patients don't want to read about cancer in their "free" time, and honestly there were days this book was too heavy - literally and figuratively - to pick up. But I learned a lot from it, and on the days when I could handle it, I'm so glad I did.
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