The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last

Written by Azra Raza

Narrated by Sheherzad Raza Preisler

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781980039655

Reviews for The First Cell

[bookanonjeff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Myth Of (Cancer) Experience. This book actually does a phenomenal job of using both hard data and anecdotal case studies to show what the current state of cancer research and treatment is - and why it is costing us far too much in both lives and dollars. This is a cancer doc/ researcher who has been in the field longer than this reader has been alive, and yet she attacks the problem in a way that genuinely makes sense: if cancer is effectively a group of cells that begin replicating uncontrollably, the best way to eliminate this phenomenon is to detect these cells as early as possible and eliminate them before they become problematic. Using several patient case studies - including her husband, who apparently started out as her boss, and her daughter's best friend among them - Raza does an excellent job of providing names and faces (yes, the book has pictures of the patients as well) to go along with the alarming yet decently documented data. (Roughly 18% of the book is bibliography, which is perhaps a touch low - 25-30% is more typical - but is better than one might expect from such a case study driven narrative.) Ultimately this book actually makes the case for The Myth of Experience better than the authors of the book by that title did, which is actually fairly interesting to this reader. :) And the Urdu poetry (with English translations as well) was a nice touch to lighten a text that could otherwise be a bit dreary. Very much recommended.

[juliestielstra · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Important, but just not very readable. It rambles and meanders from personal experience, densely scientific information, terribly sad bad-death stories, and glittering social gala fundraisers, and back again. Important because she paints a clear-eyed and damning picture of the useless "moonshot for the cure" approach to cancer, fueled by a never-ending quest for drugs: obscenely expensive, tested in ways that are meaningless for real-life treatment in human beings, and providing marginal (if any) benefit: average life extension is twelve weeks. If she had stayed with that, with a few well-chosen patient stories, it would have been a much better (and shorter) book, and perhaps a wider readership. Better to read Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal" for the end-of-life choices.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Subtitle: And The Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the LastAzra Raza is an oncologist and researcher, primarily specializing in MDS (myelodysplasic syndromes), which frequently lead to acute myeloid leukemia, a deadly cancer. Her primary thesis is that we need to change the paradigm for cancer research and treatments. Currently, research focuses on making tiny incremental changes in survival rates. Barely any progress has been made in cancer survival rates in the last 50 years, other than progress made as the result of early detection.Interspersed with the facts and the arguments she presents to support her thesis are stories of many of the cancer patients she has treated over the years, as well as the personal story of her and her husband who passed away from cancer at a relatively young age.In her view, "Prevention will be the only compassionate, universally applicable care," for cancer. By "prevention", she is not referring to life style changes etc., but to the identification and eradication of transformed cancer cells at their inception. In her words, "We should not be aiming for weeks of improved survival." No more "mouse models." She is arguing for a huge about face in how scientists approach cancer research and treatment.She makes this point repetitively, over and over. Unfortunately, she doesn't really present much information on how this is to be accomplished, and I am at a loss as to what she is arguing for scientists/doctors to do. So we are left with a book that points out problems, but does not provide solutions. And, I found that even identifying the problems was done in a somewhat disorganized way. The inclusion of the personal stories of her patients, while interesting to me, were not particularly necessary to presenting her arguments, other than showing the hell current treatments for cancer can put patients through, and ended up disrupting the flow of her arguments. It seemed to me there were two books here: personal cancer stories and a scientific argument, and neither helped the other much when they were put together.A much better book I read several years ago about problems in cancer research is The Truth in Small Doses by Clifton Leaf, which I would recommend if you are interested in the subject. The First Cell, not so much.2 stars

[jigarpatel-6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oddly refreshing given the macabre topic. Raza alternates between vignettes of her patients; advocacy of a holistic rather than reductionist approach to cancer research; and various accounts of cancer progression and treatments.