CANCER TREATMENT

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 202, 24 May 1945, Page 6

CANCER TREATMENT

London Report Received Sceptically

WELLINGTON COMMENT

Claims of more successes in the campaign against cancer by the use of a “glandular extract” treatment known as "H 11 extract,” aife regarded with a good deal of scepticism by medical authorities in Wellington. A cable message from London published yesterday stated that 677 eases, all described as being beyond further treatment and therefore' hopeless, were treated with the extract last year. Of them 67.8 per cent, had growths reduced or arrested, and in some cases there was complete disappearance of the tumours. It was also claimed that the longest recorded cases Vented sinpe 1940, had not shown recurrence in four years. Five years without recurrence is regarded as necessary before a cure can be announced.

It was stated at the Wellington Hospital yesterday that H 11 had been known to the medical profession for some time, and cancer committees iu New Zealand had been investigating it. Some doctors in the Dominion'had ,beep, interested in the treatment and some H 11 had been brought here. Special- inquiry as to its value was made through the High Commissioner, and it would seem that cancer research circles in Britain were sceptical of its results. Correspondence in the medical journals on the matter, of which there had been a good deal, also bore out. this view. “I’ve never heard anyone s’ith authority speak with respect of this product,” said Dr. P. P. Lynch, a Wellington pathologist, when, asked to comment on the report. “There are plenty of cancer research authorities who would test such a treatment. If it stood the test of experiment it would be adopted.”