TREATMENT OF CANCER

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 155, 29 December 1925, Page 7

TREATMENT OF CANCER

SUCCESS OF A NEW

METHOD

SALTS OF LEAD

IMPBOVED APPLICATION 01'

BADIUM.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 21st November,

Interesting particulars of caucer research work carried on more or less in secret in Liverpool for some years past, coupled with a declaration of a determination to "throw the cards on the table. now the light was breaking," have been given by Dr. Adumi, Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University.

This follows the announcement lade by Dr. W. Blair Bell at the Toronto Academy of Medicine, which has made a profound impression. He told of many cases of successful treatment of cancer by chemical agents, in his cases he had used lead. .Out jf 200 cases, mostly hopeless, treated, SO patients were well. Two eases \ver» specially mentioned. Five yearn ago ,a woman was admitted to the maternity ward at the Boyal Infirmary at Liverpool for her confinement, which took place a few days lator. She was suffering from extensive ulcerated carcinoma of the left breast, with enlarged glands in the axilla. The operation was declared to bo useless six months previously by two surgeone. The growth was accelerated during pregnancy as was usual in these circumstances. Intravenous injections of lead were given. Not only was the patient well, but since this treatment sho had two children, both of whom were nursed at the breast, and we*e unaffected. The other case was that of a woman, 38 years old, who ordinarily had only a few weeks to live, for sections of the growth showed that it was a rapidly-growing epindle cell sarcoma. Treatment with lead injections led to considerable decrease in tumour, while the patient increased in weight by 21 pounds. She was now in robust health, and without any symptoms of iaisease, and was married a day; or jtwo ago.

A VEST POISONOUS SUBSTANCE.

"Cancer research work has been going on in Liverpool for nearly five years," saia Dr. Adami. "The first case was a very remarkable success. Since then some 200 cases have been treated, not by Professor Blair Bell alone, but under the general supervision of a committee of his professional colleagues, who, during the last two years, have been associated with him an a regularised system of co-operative work. The clinical and scientific work Was carried out by a body of more than twenty surgeons and medical p\en, many of them experts in their | bwn particular lines. Professor Blair Bell wa* its chairman and director. I "A great difficulty," Dr. Adami fedded, "baa been that we are dealing yrith » very poisonous substance in thi» lead treatment, and our chief care las been to determine how far to go >vith administration, giving the largest safe dose with: the least damage to the body; in short,--to obtain some Jnethod of treatment that can be used generally for a long time. We have been hampered by tho difficulty that this substance, when we had prepared it, degenerated almost immediately, but we hope now we have got on the track ef better results in that respect. 'Altogether Professor Blair Bell has been engaged upon this subject for 16 or 17 years, but most of that time hi» work waa done in his own private laboratory. It is only in the later Btages that the work has. been conducted on the co-operative lines mentioned. Some of the cases have been | treated in Professor Blair Bell's own private hospital, but latterly we have made use of beds in the Northern and Southern Hospitals, and the Koyal Infirmary, so that members of the staffs of the three great hospitals are now acquainted with the principles of treatment. When Professor Blair Bell's experiments and researches reached a certain stage he felt he could not assume undivided responsibility for their further development, so he communicated what he had discovered to his friends, and they supported him in the progressive development of the principle. SHARPLY EDGED TOOLS. "It is just because the light is breaking, and we are able to see our !way more clearly, and because so many patients who were declared to be inoperable are now back to their normal way of life, we throw our cards on the table. It would be impossible to keep tho matter private any longer. If other medical institutions organised to deal with the subject with the. thoroughness and care it demands approach us, we shall admit them to a knowledge of the methods. y?9 should have to say, 'These are our methods, come and see them,' but we should take great care to see that the treatment is given only by those who have learnt the methods evolved here, and who know the exact proportions of lead salts that we have eventually established. We are dealing, let it be remembered, with sharply edged tools. There is in the result a great difference between putting something into the body which will kill the cells of a tumour and something which will kill the cells of the rest of the body, but bo far as the dose is concerned tha margin is a very fine one. It ia not a process which can be put into the hands of Tom, Dick, or Harry. A gratifying feature is that a large number of cases have gone two, three, four, and in one instance, five years without any sign of recrudescence." BIRTH CONTROL AS A CONTRIBUTARY CAUSE. A former Hunterian Professor of the Koyal College of Surgeons (Dr. Hastings Gilford), lecturing to the Koyal Institute of Public Health, dealt with the causes of cancer, and stated that the increase in tho disease is mainly in two parts of the body— the digestive and reproductive organs. He suggested that there in reason to believe that the increase of cancer among women is due to the fact that nowadays they do not have enough children, and do not have them early enough. Dr. P. Lockhart-Mummery, senior surgeon to St. Mark's Hospital for Cancer and chairman of the British Empire Cancer Campaign Committee, challenges Dr. Gilford's remarks. "Birth control has come to stay," he said. "It may, of course, be a contributory cause just like civilisation generally, bul- 1 am afraid it is altogether too vague to associate birth control directly with the incidence of cancer in women. As to the lead treatment for cancer, the work of experimentation with it has been going

on for five or six years. Others, besides Professor Bell, have tried it, but their experience dues not appear to have been very encouraging."

"The lead treatment," said another well-known authority, "has been tested over and over again, and has in many cases proved rather detrimental than otherwise. Speaking gen- - orally, it is very dangerous indeed to inject lead salts into the system." NEW BADIUM TREATMENT. ) The method employed at "Westminster Hospital appears to have had good rosults. A surgeon directing the work there explains the system. Radium as found in tjio soil is put up in small platinum needles of varying lengths. These needles are stuck in the flesh twenty or thirty at a time round the tumour. The platinum retains the beta radium rays that are harmful to the body, but releases the gamma radium rays that are destructive to the cancer; so that by means of the needles an intricate network and cross-fire of curative rays are liberated over the affected area. Tlic needle rays are more powerful than the influences diffused by radon tubes, and whereas radon emanations, after a fairly short time, diminish and disappear, the needles containing a complement of true radium are practically of eternal efficacy. A WONDERFUL WEAPON. "When we have surrounded the growth with the needles, this is what happens," explained the surgeon. "The cancer.cells stop dividing and doveloping; growth ceases; the tumour shrinks; hemorrhage from the tumour disappears; and, ia successful cases, the cancer vanishes. Several times in hopeless cases where I anticipated no success I have tried the method out of charity and humanity. The patients' growths have gone. We now have a wonderful weapon; we are gradually determining how to use it. In certain cases we have already definitely found the right dose. Is it a cure? I have said that patients leave this hospital without a trace of the cancerous tumour that brought them here. Under our system patients come T>ack for examination at intervals. In five years we shall be abie to compare the apparently succssful,radium treatments with the surgically treated cases."

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