CANCER RESEARCH

Taranaki Daily News, 24 June 1931, Page 14

CANCER RESEARCH

SCIENTISTS STILL AT WORK, NEW DUTCH TREATMENT. New work on cancer is reported both in England and on the Continent. The most interesting contribution, perhaps, says the medical correspondent of the News-Chronicle, is the research of a London physiologist who has been experimenting on a preparation made from the parathyroid gland. This gland has long been known to control ' the proportion of calcium in the blood, but he has now shown that it has also another function. In the Journal of Physiology the physiologist has demonstrated that when the “calcium-raising factor” is removed from parathyroid extract a substance is left behind which will stop animals and plants from growing. This anti-growth factor is being further studied by him in a London laboratory, but meanwhile it has been thought worth while to try it in a few serious cases of cancer, on the chance that it will stop the gfowth of the tumour. The results have not been published, but they are known to be somewhat disappointing. The critics say that any extract powerful enough to stop the growth of the tumour will necessarily stop the processes of repair on which recovery must ultimately depend. The writer proceeds: “From Holland comes news of a so-called cancer cure by injection of an unnamed chemical substance. No information is available

about the results. But although ‘its author, Dr. Bendien, has given no account of his proposed treatment, he has published in Germany a book on his new method of diagnosing the disease, and here he. has given adequate details. The book is now in the hands of cancer experts in Britain, who will be able to judge-whether his new blood test is of any practical value. For several years we have had a test which depends, like Dr. Bendien’s, on the precipitation of albumen, but it is only accurate in 60 or 70 per cent, of cases and is therefore useless in practice. “Another type of test depends on the observation that the breakdown of tissues—as in cancer—liberates certain enzymes, or ferments, in the blood, and the Lancet contains an account of research at Edinburgh along these lines. The evidence there brought forward indicates that the blood of cancer patients may contain recognisable quantities of a ferment called Arginase, and the results of some 60 examinations in cases of cancer and other diseases justify the ‘tentative suggestion’ that this fact may be useful in diagnosis. “As regards treatment the position is, unfortunately,, unchanged, and even in radium we have.nothing like a general means of cure.” • Doctors attending'a conference in Berlin recently passed a resolution approving the standpoint that, in the fight against cancer, the greatest contribution toward success will be made by immediate arid 'constant; supervision of those who are suffering from the disease, and of those who are suspected- of having it. This new method of organising the struggle with the disease should, says the resolution, be carried out optimistically, but, at the same time, illusions regarding the possibilities of complete success should-be avoided.