Summary of The Death of Cancer: by Vincent DeVita and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn | Summary & Analysis

By Instaread Summaries

Summary of The Death of Cancer by Vincent DeVita and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn | Includes Analysis

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The Death of Cancer is a comprehensive look at the trajectory of cancer treatment in America over the last fifty years, as told through the lens of Vincent DeVita’s

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781945048074

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Summary

The Death of Cancer is a comprehensive look at the trajectory of cancer treatment in America over the last fifty years, as told through the lens of Vincent DeVita’s personal experience as a pioneering oncologist. DeVita began his career at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1963, at a time when cancer was considered a death sentence. In the 1960s, standard treatments for the disease were radiation and surgery, but DeVita was introduced to chemotherapy, thanks to his driven, visionary supervisors, who had accumulated evidence that combined drugs were effective, although this was controversial practice at the time.

As he saw that chemotherapy held great promise, DeVita learned a life lesson: to give patients their best shot at survival, one had to be diligent and often buck conventional medical standards. Driven by his early experiences, DeVita has spent his entire career fighting to put the patient first. Frequently, the needs of the patient are thwarted by a medical culture that is slow to change and adopt a stance of experimentation.

Every year, more than a million people are diagnosed with cancer in the United States. Over the last five decades, incredible strides have been made in both the treatment of cancer and the understanding of its basic biology. But in DeVita’s estimation, the real work that remains to be done is changing the culture of how cutting-edge research is or isn’t applied to the