Patrick Tripp

Patrick Tripp is a radiation oncologist at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Centre.

A pleural effusion​, fluid trapped between the linings of the lung, had been identified on the CT scan of a 65-year-old man recently diagnosed with lung cancer. ‘Either it’s nothing,’ I told him, ‘an inflammatory response to the biopsy itself, or it’s from the cancer. If the fluid has cancer cells in it, that would change the prognosis.’ Cancer...

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences