ON THE INCREASE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1935, Page 4

ON THE INCREASE

SUSCEPTIBILITY TO CANCER. (Per Press Association, Copyright).- -h WELLINGTON, June 24. The apparent increase of cancer during recent years was discussed by Dr. C. 0. Coghlan, a prominent medical practitioner, at Sydney, who was interviewed! ora the arrival of tho Maunganui from Frisco. He has returned from a tour of the States, and Canada, investigating methods adopted by the medical world there. Cancer, he said, only appeared to be on the increase. The expectation of life was ten years longer to-day than. 25 years ago and cancer was seldom , apparent until after 40. This more people were susceptible to the disease than a quarter of a century ago, the expectation of life now being 55, against 45 yeaxo. He said one of th c best radium clinics he had seen was in Toronto. Throughout the United States, except in New York and ’Frisco, very little importance was placed on radium treatment. Surgery was preferred. On tho other hand, in Toronto, there has not been an operation for uterine cancer for fourteen years, and when he went through the records, he found the results were as good or even better than places where operations were preferred. Radium treatment was more drastic than that used at \ Sydney, . as larger doses of radium S* were used there. When he left Sydney, he thought that radium was pretty hopeless; but he wa h - now feeling more hopeful about it.

TREATMENT IN ENGLAND. LONDON, June 24. The “News-Chronicle” says; “The Fulham Cancer Hospital has installed a new X-ray tube at a cost of £7OO. It treats cancer as effectively as radium, which costs £IO,OOO a gram. The X-r-y apparaif is flias been invented in Germany, where further radium purchase could not be afforded. Fiftythousand people die every year from cancer in Britain. The Fulham Hospital authorities anticipate that all cases can be treated henceforth.