CURE OF CANCER

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12455, 25 May 1926, Page 7

CURE OF CANCER

TREATMENT BY RADIUM CONSIDERABLE SUCCESS ACHIEVED. Per Press Association. CHRISTOHURCH, May 24. “From the amount of success with which external oancer has been treated by radium, 1 am entitled to believe that within this decade we will he able to look upon the disease as entirely curable,” said Dr Fenwick this morning. Dr Fenwick is in charge of the radium department at the Christchurch Hospital, and his statement was in reply to a question whether radium was used with any success in the treating of cancer. An American authority, Dr Francis Carter Wood, stated to the National Health Congress last week that surgery was the only effective means of treating internal cancer. He added that professional optimism regarding the curative value of radium and X-ray was not warranted, and tho public should realise that no cure for this disease had yet been found. “Surgery is certainly the only cure so far,” said Dr Fenwick, “but there are cases when the knife cannot remove the cancer and the patient has to die in agony. This is where radium comes in. For while the rays have not been able to reach deep enough tp cure they have removed many of the distressing symptoms. Patients lives have been lengthened, and where incurable cancer has killed them they have died with little pain. There are many people about the streets now who would not have been able to get about without treatment by radium.” The doctor added that cases of external cancer had been cured by radium, and therefore it could not be considered that internal disease which was the same was incurable. It was incurable only when the surgeon’s knife could not reach the growth without the grave risk of killing the patient.