Research Unit Prepares To Extend Studies

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29398, 28 December 1960, Page 11

Research Unit Prepares To Extend Studies

The North Canterbury FullTime Medical Unit, the research laboratory at the Princess Margaret Hospital, moved recently for the first time into a home of its own—a laboratory and office suite on the third floor of “F” block. The laboratory is in a room originally designed as an operating theatre, but now set up with lighting, benches, and equipment appropriate to its new function. This week, “The Press” interviewed the director of the unit, Dr. D. W. Beaven, still in the throes of reorganisation after the shift. Readings must still be taken, information collated, and recommended treatments for patients arranged, whatever else may be temporarily shelved- Increasing the complexity of the changeover has been the impending loss of Dr. Beaven’s biochemist assistant, Miss F. Katz, and the appointment, to date from January 1, of Dr. E. A. Espiner as the unit’s first registrar. The unit is one of three set up two years ago in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch by the University of Otago in conjunction with the local hospital boards. The idea is to take advantage of the opportunities for research offered by the main centres other than Dunedin, where the medical school is located. Until it moved into its new quarters, the unit at the Princess Margaret was housed in a room made available by the hospital’s pathology department. So far, the unit has worked solely on information collected from patients; now, however, it is awaiting confirmation of a research grant from the Medical Research Council to enable work to be done on sheep, in conjunction with research staff of the Canterbury Agricultural College. The information gained from

observing patients, while of general value in increasing medical knowledge, is usually also of direct help to the sufferers. The general plan of action has been to give the patient various treatments known to be of value to many sufferers from a like disease, and to compare the results from these treatments and from combinations of them. The special fields chosen have been' oedema (excess of water and sodium in the system) and diabetes. The technique involves a very careful feeding programme, which does not alter over the period of the experiments, and an equally careful collection of the urineThe Experiments have yielded general information on diabetes and on body metabolism as well as specific points useful in the patients’ treatment. A third avenue of study has been mainly directed at breast cancer, and it is this line which has led to the proposal for animal studies. Certain standard treatments have given relief to some sufferers from this type of cancer, while other patients are unrelieved. Dr. Beaven has been trying to link the balance of certain hormones in the systems of his patients with their susceptibility to relief by the various treatments. In this way, he hopes to gain some understanding of the way induced alterations in hormone balance may help control the disease. The same principle has been used with other complaints. Until now, Dr. Beaven has used hormones recovered from the urine as the basis of his tests; but he hopes to do the same from blood samples. Since a blood sample is necessarily very small, the amount of hormones to be traced are minute, of the order of a microgram or less. Such quantities cannot be detected by routine chemical means: hence, they are normally followed either by radio-active labelling or by observing their effects on animals, mostly rats or- mice. Dr. Beaven proposes to use sheep because in these much larger animals, he believes, the effects may be much more easily observable. The sheep willbe kept at Lincoln.