To the Editor I read with interest the Viewpoint by Beer and Prasad.¹ I agree with the points they raised regarding the book by DeVita and DeVita-Raeburn, The Death of Cancer.² Their book is a good historical perspective of the development of modern multidrug chemotherapy and has a fascinating account of DeVita’s team’s success in achieving high rates of complete remissions and even cures in advanced Hodgkin disease and other hematological malignant neoplasms. However, that approach has had limited success in the treatment of most other cancers. The attitude of “never give up” causes more harm than good. Unregulated, unsupervised clinical trials have caused severe harm to many patients, as illustrated by the Jesse Gelsinger case.³

我很感兴趣地向编辑读了比尔和普拉萨德的《观点》。¹我同意他们对DeVita和DeVita-Raeburn的著作《癌症的死亡》提出的观点。²他们的书是现代多药化疗发展的良好历史观点，对DeVita团队成功实现高水平的完全缓解甚至治愈晚期霍奇金病和其他血液系统恶性肿瘤的成功率有着令人着迷的印象。但是，该方法在大多数其他癌症的治疗中取得了有限的成功。“永不放弃”的态度弊大于利。如杰西·格辛格（Jesse Gelsinger）案所示，未经监管，无监督的临床试验对许多患者造成了严重伤害。³