TREATMENT OF CANCER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27209, 28 November 1953, Page 3

TREATMENT OF CANCER

High-Energy Radiation Therapy USE IN NEW ZEALAND ADVOCATED New Zealand should have some sort of high-energy radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer, according to Dr. A. J. Campbell, radiotherapist to the North Canterbury Hospital Board, who returned to Christchurch this week after spending about a year overseas studying developments in radiotherapy. He said that accessible tumours could be controlled reasonably satisfactorily with apparatus at present in use, but it appeared that nigh-energy radiation would give the opportunity of controlling deeperseated tumours .more satisfactorily. High-energy radiation was tne production of X-rays either at very high voltages, or the use of radiations from certain radio-active isotopes, such as radio-active cobalt and radio-active caesium, in the treatment of disease. Dr. Campbell said that he believed that the aevelopment and use of highenergy radiation and the wide use of radio-active isotopes were probably the most important recent advance in radiotherapy. A great deal of work had been done in the United States and Canada, and more would be done in Britain, on the use of radio-active cobalt as a source of this type of radiation. Because the apparatus was simple and consequently needed very little servicing, it appeared to be the most satisfactory for New Zealand conditions.

While he was overseas. Dr. Campbell said, he had been interested in a number of new applications of radioactive isotopes. An example was the use of radio-active gold seeds in nylon tubing as a substitute for radium needle implants. He had seen that at the Ohio State University Hospital, where he had worked fop two months. Almost any clinic of any size in Britain had a physics department or section attached to it, in which the physicist not only calibrated and regulated the dosage from the various treatment appliances, but was also able to produce, after research, new apparatus for the measurement • of dosage and the detection of very small amounts of radio-active isotopes. Dr. Campbell said that this work had been particularly ‘impressive at the Royal Cancer Hospital in London and the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute at Manchester. Work at Manchester The Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute was the equal of any cancer treatment centre he had seen anywhere in the world. It was doing outstanding work in the early diagnosis of the disease and the wide discussion of almost every case that came in. It also used a very accurate method of working out a dosage and of applying the treatment. A department called the mould room, which was about as big as the whole radium department at the Christchurch Public Hospital, did nothing else but produce perspex shells and special mouth and lip moulds for the accurate application of radiation treatment. Dr. Campbell said that the Hammersm.th Hospital in London had developed a simple form of using radioactive iodine in the treatment of disease of the thyroid gland, which contrasted with the very much more complicated routine at some other hospitals. In America Dr. Campbell attended the annual meeting of the American Society of Roentgenology at Cincinnati!. Dr. Campbell said that he believed that Britain still led the world in radiotherapy, and was more than any other country the source of inspiration for it, but some of the younger workers in the United States had assimilated a certain amount of British radiotherapy since the war, and with their keenness and enthusiasm they would, he thought, gain a good deal on Britain in the next three or four years. Dr. .Campbell said that there had been no “world-shaking” development in cancer treatment generally, but there was slow and steady progress. “I think we can give better palliation to the advanced case now than we could previously,” he said.