RADIUM TREATMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 114, 18 May 1925, Page 5

RADIUM TREATMENT

EFFECT ON CANCER

EXPERIENCE OF FOURTEEN

YEARS

AN IMPORTANT VOLUME,

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 7th April. Nearly 14 years have elapsed (writes the medical correspondent of ■ "The Times") since the Radium Institute was opened. In that period 14,500 patients have been dealt with, and 103,000 treatments with radium given. The fruit of this vast effort is a body, of knowledge about the new element which is necessarily of very great practical importance. It is about to be given to the world in a volume entitled "A Clinical Index of Radium Therapy," written by" Mr. Hayward Pinch, the Medical Superintendent of the Institute, with the assistance of Dr. Mottram, the Director of the Pathological Laboratory, and Mr. W. L. S. Alton, the Director of the Chemico-Physical Laboratory. The book deals with the treatment of a large number of diseases, and discloses the very wide use of radium in therapeutics, which is now taking place; its most important sections, however, are those devoted to the control of cancer. The general statement .; is . made :— I "Great symptomatic relief and prolongation of life, accompanied not infrequently by 'apparent cure' of the condition, are seen in many case of malignant disease; but even though some such patients have been in good health for periods ranging from seven to thirteen years, it would be extremely unwise to predict that any or all of them 1 would remain free from recurrence in- J definitely. The. repute of radium therapy has suffered severely from the irrational enthusiasm and unthinking expectation which so often attend the appearance of a new remedy; but none the less it is important to deny that radium is a therapeutic agent of great, and in some respects unique, power. -With increased knowledge and improved technique, it may be hoped that the time will come when the word 'euro' may ha used deliberately and justifiably with , regard to ■ the radium treatment ot a constantly increasing number of-cases-of malignant disease; "- NOT AN ALTERNATIVE FOB SURGERY. No suggestion is made, however, that radium should at present be resorted lo instead of surgery, in operable cancer cases. Its use, when operation lias become impossible, is, on the other hand entirely justified. It is frequently attended by good results. Thus, in casea ot cancer of the lip "great henefit la very often obtained in inoperable cases, the progress of the disease, being arrested, -ulceration healed, and haemorrhage and discharge abolished." In one form of epithelioma of the cheek, the method of burying tubes of radium in the diseased area, "will almost invariably bring about the complete disappearance of the lesion, which rarely, if ever, recurs." Cancer of the tongue is notoriously Qifhcult to treat by ' radium, and, as is stated, used to be the beto noire of the radiologist. It is, .however, added .that recently, with improved technique and increasing clinical experience, much more encouraging results have been obtained, though the cases still present much difficulty, in treatment,, and .aro a source of anxiety to all concerned.",' The effect of radium irradiation upon any living cell, if of sufficient intensity and permitted to act for a sufficient I length of time, -is; first, increase of activity, then arrest of activity, and finally, -1 j degeneration and destruction. ' NormaS cells and pathological (tumour) celi.'O however, behave differently when subjected to radium. The tumour cells are more easily stimulated, their vitality is more quickly inhabited, and degeneration, occurs at a more rapid rate. Thus ' _ tho mam principle underlying all radium therapy is the correct estimation of tho dosage and exposure necessary to bring about the death of the pathological cells without appreciably affecting the. functions and vitality of tho normal ones, and so enabling repair to be accomplished satisfactorily." . . j VARIABLE EFFECTS. The use for radium in. the treatment of disease is still something of an experiment. It is this fact which lends such importance to the present volume Because here are the records'of many years placed 1 side by side with well-founded anticipations for the immediate future optimism, where it is indulged in, is real optimism, and not merely the expression of a pious hope. Curiously enough, radium affects different persons in different ways—humanity itself reacting individually after the fashion of the bodily cells Thus persons of a highly neurotic temped ment are undoubtedly more susceptible than those of a phlegmatic type, both tocal and systematise reactions being ktt?r ,? fimte m A th- 6 f°rmer than in th f much W < A,? m ' Pe°Ple wh° ™ffep ratonT 6 ffiOntha aft« treatmfntSriti!