CANCER TREATMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18446, 6 January 1922, Page 6

CANCER TREATMENT

Remarkably successful results in the treatnuffit of cancer are being obtained at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, by the “Dual Method” of applying X-rays. “ The system had been only recently installed,” wrote a medical correspondent of the Daily Mail in October, “and it is too soon to make a definite claim of permanent cure. At least five years must, elapse without recurrence of cancerous growths before it can bo confidently said that the, disease is cured.

“ But one of' the cases described te me yesterday at the hospital is almost miraculous. A doctor, in whom seven surgeons diagnosed cancer, and regarded the case as hopeless, submitted himself for treatment with X-raya. Death bad seemed certain within a few weeks, 'but ho is now back in active service.

" Many other patients have been treated with similar success, although their cases were not eo desperate. “It has been found that a patient must have sufficient reserve of power to stand the treatment, but when this is present the cancerous growth can be controlled. That is definitely established. “ The distinguishing feature of this method is that it aims not ortly at destroying the local canoer, but also at killing the cancerous cells wandering through the body which give rise later on to tumours ip other parts of tho body. This is the only way in which a permanent cure oan bo hoped for. It is advisable that the surgeon should first remove by operation as much of the cancer os possible, and that tho X-rays should follow, to kill tho cancerous / cells in tho blood, “About 50 patients are treated in the London Hospital every week by this apparatus, which was designed by a London medical man and is of British manufacture. Much further research is necessary, but unfortunately for the sufferers from this increasingly destructive disease, it is held up by want of funds.”