CANCER RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27860, 7 January 1956, Page 11

CANCER RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES

Progress Report From A Famous Institute IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS OF GREAT SIGNIFICANCE [From J. GRIFFITH] [Associated Newspapers Feature Services] NEW YORK, December 22. Scientific research into cancer-control methods is making swift progress in the United States, and three out of every four persons who contract the disease, when it is detected in the early stages, can now be entirely cured. Improved United States techniques of early recognition of cancer have reduced the rate of climb in deaths from the disease. SUR346 can now produce a permanent cure if the cancer has not had time to scatter its wild cells through the body. When detected early enough, the cancer may be completely removed and its threat to life wholly stamped out.

The announcement by the worldfamous Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in New York that it is now possible to kill cancer cells withoqt injuring closely related normal cells is an important development which will accelerate cancer research throughout the world. The director of the institute. Dr. C. P. Rhoads, told the writer that “there seems to be good reason to believe that we have a rational approach to cancer control which, if vigorously and intensively pursued, should lead us towards our goal.” In our time. Dr. Rhoads thinks, it may be possible to give “shots” against cancer and prevent it, just as smallpox and some other infectious diseases are prevented. Results of anti-serums may have as far reaching significance in the lives of potential concer, victims as the Salk vaccine is said to have on potential poliomyelitis victims. “The new information We have will make it possible to narrow the search for chemicals that will entirely destroy cancer cells in man.” said Dr. Rhoads The institute’s annual report—issued this tveek to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the institute’s founding —cites these outstanding gains in United States cancer research: Several types of human cancer can now be grown in laboratory animals, test tubes, and fertilised eggs. Adoption of viruses to increase their ability to destroy cancer -tissue in the test tube and laboratory animals Statistical evidence linking larynx * cancer with all types of smoking. Smokers who' are also heavy drinkers show a greatly increased tendency to larynx cancer. “Safe and effective” treatment of some , women with inoperable breast cancer by removal of the pituitary, providing “a substantial relief to the most common form of cancer in the United States.” The report adds that “evidence shows that every kind of cell has its own peculiar chemical requirements for the build-up of its nuclei acid, the fabric of the, gene and the substance responsible for growth, reproduction, and heredity.” Use of' Cobalt Rays The institute also notes that irradiation (radium. X-ray, the Betatron, radioactive isotopes and the cyclo-synchretron) is used effectively in the treatment of certain types of cancer. Technical improvements in these rpethods have recorded rewarding progress. Radioactive cobalt, brewed in atomic furnaces, is potentially the most lethal force on earth. As an ingredient of the H-bomb, it can bring mass annihilation. But. properly harnessed, its rays cure instead of kill. Radioactive cobalt is the latest, the most potent w :apon for penetration of deep-lying cancers once believed incurable. The most powerful cobalt bomb in the world is at New York’s Montefiore Hospital. The radiation given off from its 17 thin cobalt wafers—the size of six stacked Australian shilling pieces—is greater than that of all the world’s medical radium in penetrating power, the rays equal those of a gigantic 3 million-electron-volt X-ray machine. But the 50,000 dollar cobalt bomb costs only a tenth as much. Montefiore specialists are daily

bombarding tumours with the cobalt’s invisible beam—not just in hopes of prolonging the patients’ lives but to shrink massive tumours and destroy their cells. The cobalt-beam therapy machine has four distinct advantages over conventional X-ray treatment, 1. Cancers at any depth, including tumours in the lungs, stomach or brain, can be better attacked; • 2. Surface tissue and skin are not burned; 3. Surrounding healthy bone and soft tissue receive fewer rays; 4. There is far less radiation sickness. During each eight-hour shift, as many as 15 patients are treated under the machine. The patient feels and hears nothing a< he sits alone in a chair or lies.on a rotating table under the awesome unit resembling a huge camera. But the dose of exploding cobalt atoms knocks out cancer cells so well as to enable healthy tissue to flourish. Although patients spend only 12 minutes a day under the potent beam, specialists must work more thah five hours planning direction and dosage of treatment. With a brain tumour, lor example, a plaster cast is made of the head. Lead markers, embedded in the cast, show up on X-ray films, allowing a physicist to locate the tumour. Bicycle spokes, jabbed through these points in the cast, intersect the tumour area and show where the straight beam should enter, pnd bombard only the tumour, and leave. Cobalt Beam Therapy United States cancer specialist, are reluctant to use the word "cure.” But they dq sav enthusiastically that results with cobalt-beam therapy machines are “exceedingly good.” These powerful multi-mlllion-volt X-rays and radioactive drugs, “cooked” in the atomic pile, are inci easing the cancer survival rate. The neutrons, acting as “atomic guided missiles.” go straight to the hidden cancer tissues without harming healthy tissues. The spectacular results of these modern techniques show that scientists may reach their goal—the conquering of cancer—sooner' than they once thought. The institute’s report. In a virile attack on “the menace of cancer quacks,” says that at lefcst 62 quack cancer cures are being offered for sale in the United States. These remedies—cause of futile hope and heavy cost for the patient —range from unadulterated distilled water 10 rhododendron paste, vinegar, fig leaves arsenic, zinc, lead and fat. None of these, the report says, has “the slightest value.” Throughout the United States, says the report, charlatans mulct the public out of at least 10.000,000 dollars a year, and are responsible for hundreds of needless deaths. __ “There is nothing in an* chemist shop that can cure cancer,’* the institute warns. “Cancer research institutes.. which have spent more than 100.000.000 dollars on research in the last 10 years, know of no medicine, oill, ointment, massage or electric treatment which will cure a malignant growth. “Nothing except surgery and radiation has beert found effective as a cure and. even so, it is the surgeon, not the knife, the radiologist, and not ’the voltage, that gets results.**