Leon P. Bignold Bücher

Principles of Tumors covers all of the fundamental aspects of tumors, including their definitions, incidences, causation, pathogenesis, treatments, and prevention. The book provides a unique approach, integrating a wide range of basic bioscience findings with clinico-pathological observations and phenomena encountered in their treatment. As tumors are studied in fairly separate, broad areas, such as basic biological sciences, pathology, oncology, and epidemiology, this book brings together these perspectives, providing an all-inclusive text that benefits all researchers, while also providing an avenue for translational research. Integrates both cell mechanisms and tumor physiopathology Brings together research and perspectives from basic biological sciences, pathology, oncology, and epidemiology, providing an all-inclusive text Provides a concise tumor reference for the tumor researcher and oncologist Includes appendices for foundational material Brings out the cell detail of tumors

In 1890, just a few years after the discovery of the chromosomes, David Paul Hansemann, a pathologist-in-training with the famous Rudolph Virchow in Berlin, produced a theory of the pathogenesis of cancer involving the key current concept: that the first change which occurs in cancer is an alteration of the hereditary material of a normal cell at the site where the cancerous process begins. In the process of linking cancer to chromosomal material, Hansemann coined the terms „anaplasia“ and „dedifferentiation“. These terms have remained the basis of descriptive terms concerning the microscopical appearances of tumours ever since. Nevertheless, despite the popularity of his terminology, Hansemann's ideas were attacked vigorously by almost all proponents of rival theories of the nature of cancer. Partly due to these disputes during his life-time, and partly due to other factors, interest in von Hansemann's ideas diminished during the twentieth century and his works are rarely mentioned today. This book presents translations of all the relevant German texts, and analyses the background and context of Hansemann's theories as well as the reasons why he was almost completely forgotten. It shows that some of Hansemann’s ideas may still be relevant to cancer research today, and that he deserves to be remembered in relation to cancer as Vordenker unter den führenden Denkern seiner Zeit - The foremost of the leading thinkers of his time.

This volume began with an invitation from the publishers to edit a volume of EXS on Cancer. This invitation undoubtedly derived from my articles in Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences in 2002 and 2003 on the relationships between the morphology, aetiology and pathogenesis of tumours, especially in relation to genetic instability. After many years of teaching the theories of c- cer in undergraduate medical school courses, it seemed to me that the variably chaotic histopathologic features of tumours parallel in some way, the variably unstable genomes of tumour cells, which were being discovered in the 1990s. Thus the title of the volume has come to include morphology, carcinogenesis and genetic instability. The invitation came while I was working with Herrn Dr. med. Hubertus Jersmann (MD Düsseldorf, PhD, now Senior Lecturer in Medicine of the University of Adelaide) and Professor Brian Coghlan (Emeritus Professor of German, the University of Adelaide), on the work of the nineteenth century cancer pathologists, especially David Paul von Hansemann (1858–1920). With the delivery of the manuscripts from the authors of the chapters, it became obvious that a background chapter for the volume could include some of the material which we had “uncovered” together. Because of this, chapter 1 is authored by the three of us, and the “new” material figures prominently.