INCIDENCE OF CANCER

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24152, 11 January 1944, Page 5

INCIDENCE OF CANCER

NEW METHODS OF TREATMENT

BRITISH SPECIALIST’S VIEWS

SYDNEY. December 24.

Of Australia’s population of 7,500,000, more than 10,000 would contract cancer during the next 12 months, Dr. Ralston Paterson said in a talk broadcast in Sydney. But not 10,000 persons would die of cancer, he added. If treated early many types of cancer were now definitely curable.

Dr. Paterson is director of the Holt Cancer Institute in Manchester. England. He came to New South Wales at the request of the State Government to advise on the establishment of a cancer institute.

Between 3000 and 4000 patients were treated at the Holt Institute every day. Dr. Paterson said. A survey of past work showed that more than 40 per cent, were alive and well five years after treatment. The actual figure for 1933 was 43 per cent. Of patients treated early, more than 60 per cent were alive and well five years later. These results had been achieved by treatment with X-rays and radium on types of cancer sensitive to treatment by radiological methods. Surgical methods gave equally good results in other kinds of cancer. In these, surgery had been found to be the best method of treatment.

Dr. Paterson stated that every year, with improving methods of treatment the number of cancer patients cured was increasing. Cancers of the skin, prevalent in Australia, could now be considered as nearly 100 per cent, curable. Cancer of the mouth, which used to be invariably fatal, could now be cured in a large number of cases. Two cancers which affected women, cancer of the breast and cancer of the womb, if treated in their early stages, yielded hi?h percentages of permanent cures. Dr. Paterson added: “This new outlook for cancer sufferers is due to changes in methods of treatment, and of diagnosis which have taken place fairly recently. In the last 50 years we have seen great achievements by surgical methods. More recently there was the discovery of radium and Xrays. and their successful application to the treatment of cancer.”