CANCER RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22629, 22 July 1935, Page 11

CANCER RESEARCH

RADIUM TREATMENT EXPERIENCE OF OVERSEAS HOSPITALS (Peb United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, July 21. " Radium treatment of cancer 18 in the melting pot," said Dr P. Stanley Foster, who returned to Christchurch yesterday, in summarising the experience gained' at the leading hospitals in Canada and the United States which ho visited during his recent tour. In some cases excellent results were being obtained with radium, he said, but at the Toronto General Hospital, which had probably the finest record for research in the British Empire, the specialists were so unhappy about the results obtained with radium that they had sent one their staff to "spy out the land" in Europe and determine whether better results were being obtained' there. Instead of direct metallic radium treatment, radium emanations, evanescent substances which were encased in gold shells and soon lost their potency, were being used at the Memorial Hospital 'in New York. A similar method had been in use in Christchurch, said Dr Foster, shells being "planted" by means of tubes in parts of the body which were difficult of access. A deep X-ray treatment had also been developed in New York concerning which research workers were very hopeful.