RADIUM AND CANCER

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 143, 21 May 1925, Page 12

RADIUM AND CANCER

EFFECTS OF TREATMENT. I ENCOURAGING RESULTS. LONDON, April 7. Nearly 14 years have elapsed, writes the medical correspondent of tile 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 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 Air W. L. S. Alton, the director of the chemico-pliysical laborutorv.

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 section, however, are those devoted to the control of cancer. The general statement is made:— “'Great symptomatic relief and prolongation of life, accompanied not infrequently by ‘apparent cure’ of the condition, are seen in many cases 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 would remain free from recurrence indefinitely. The repute ol radium therapy has suffered severely from tie irrational enthusiasm and unthinking expectation which so often attend the appearance ofa new remedy; hut none the less, it is impossible to deny that radium is a therapeutic agent of great, and in some respects unique, power. With increased knowedge and improved technique it may be hoped that the time will come when the word ‘cure’ may he used deliberately and justifiably with regard to the radium treatment of a constantly increasing number of cases ol malignant disease.”

NO ALTERNATIVE FOR SURGERY

No suggestion is made, however, that radium should at present he resorted to instead of surgery in operable cancer cases. Its use, when operation has become impossible, is, on the other baud, entirely justified. It is frequentiiy attended by good results. Thus, in leases of cancer of the lip “great benej fit is very often obtained in inoperable cases', the progress of the disease being arrested, ulceration healed, and hemorrhage and discharge abolished.” l ln nne form of epithelioma of the check, the method of burying tubes of radium in the diseased area “will almost invariably bring about the complete disappearance of the lesion, which I rarely, if ever, recurs.” Cancer of the ! tongjie is notoriously difficult to treat by radium, and, as is stated, used to be the liete 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 are a source of anxiety to all concerned.” The effect: of radium irradiation upon any living cell, if of sufficient intensity I.rmil permitted to act for a sufficient length of time, is, first, increase of activity. then arrest of activity, and finaliyfi degeneration and destruction. Normal cells and pathological (tumour) cells, however, behave differently when subjected to radium. The tumour cells, are more easily stimulated, their vitality is more quickly inhibited, and degeneration occurs at a more rapid rate. Thus, “the main principle underlying all radium therapy is the correct estimation of the dosage and exposure necessary to bring about the death of the pathological cells without appreciably affecting the functions and vitality of the normal ones, and so enabling repair to be accomplished satisfactorily.’

VARIATION IN EFFECTS

The use of radium in. the treatment of disease is still something of un experiment. It is this fact which lends such importance to the present volume. Because here are the records of many years placed side by side with wellfounded 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— Immunity itself reacting individually after the fashion of the bodily cells. Thus, persons of a highly neurotic temperament are undoubtedly more susceptible chan those of a phlegmatic type, booh local and systematic reactions being more definite in the former than i'll the latter- class. Again, people who suffer much from freckling or exhibit an unusual degree of susceptibility to the violet rays of the sun frequently develop some darkening of the skin some months after treatment with radium.