USE OF RADIUM

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 5

USE OF RADIUM

NEW MEDICAL METHODS

PROMISING RESULTS

WOKK OX THE BRAIN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, October 31. "The Medical Uses of Radium" is the title of an important report issued by the Medical Research Council this week. The publication contains an interesting account of the work carried out during 1932, especially as regards new situations in which radium is being used for treating malignant growths. The loan to the council of supplementary supplies of radium by the British Empire Cancer Campaign and the Radium Commission has.greatly facilitated research. The better understanding of the dosage of radium, and the technique of its application, have led to a marked improvement in the results of treating cancer in many parts of the body. The prospect of success in certain types of disease, which hitherto had been regarded as hopelessly resistant to treatment, now appears to be within sight. The sphere of application of radium in malignant disease is becoming move and more1 extended. Out of 5520 patients treated during the last two yonvs at ton leading medical centres, it is stated "that while 1721, or 31 per cent., were treated by surgery, 2175, 39 per cent., were treated solely by radium. TREATMENT OF THE BRAIN. A new field of study described in the report is the treatment of1 cancer of the brain by radium. Two methods are being employed. The first in-volves-the insertion into the depths of the tumour of tiny gold capsules filled with "radon," a gas derived from" radium possessing similar though more temporary healing effects. The second consists in the application to the tumour of massive doses of tube X-rays. In this respect it is interesting to learn that the brain has a high degree of toleration to intensive radiation. It is perhaps significant that the immediate effects attained by both methods are regarded as satisfactory. It has been found that the. normal brain tissue has a higher tolerance of radiation than had been expected, and this means that higher doses of radiation can be given than for tumours in- other parts of the body. This has led to the discovery that the skin of the scalp has also a very much higher -tolerance of radiation (about 50 per cent, more) than the skin elsewhere in the body. The degree of tolerance of the skin is beeonfing of great importance now that larger amounts of radium are. available for external radiation, for the '.'dose" that can be given to save internal growth is necessarily limited by the amount of radiation tolerated by the area of skin in the path of the rays. This question is now being specially studied, particularly in relation to the' blood supply of the skin in different parts of the body. Other important work carried out at various, research centres during the year was concerned with the changes in the. actual cells of cancer or of normal tissue under the influence of radium. ; RADIUM IN RUBBER BALL. A case in which a rubber ball was sewn into a patient for ten days is nientidiied. In the centre of the rubbei ball was a conL'cntrated dose of about 25 milligrammes of radium. This method of treating an internal affected organ was tried at the General Hospital, Birmingham, and the patient has since been in perfect health. The council reports that the treatment of one form of carcinoma by irradiation had until (lately been disappointing, but there were now indications that, with greater experience and better understanding of the dosage, the futuro held out a more favourable prospect. The report adds: — "It is therefore of the utmost; importance that new radium methods of treatment should be explored, for it points to the fact that although for many years .these growths have been looked "upon as hopeless or as radioresistant, some have responded well to treatment, with the>result that patients are alive a number of. years afterwards. ''