CANCER CAN BE CURED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17854, 24 May 1926, Page 5

CANCER CAN BE CURED.

DR FENWICK BELIEVES REMEDY WILL BE FOUND IN PRESENT DECADE. “ From the amount •of success with which external cancer has been treated by radium, I am entitled to believe that within this decadp we will be able to look upon the disease as entirely' curable.” said Dr Fenwick this morning to a “ Star ” reporter. Dr Fenwick is in charge of the radium department at the Qhristchurch Hospital, and his statement was in reply to a question whether radium was used with any- success in treating 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 the professional optimism regarding the curative value of radium and the X-ray was not warranted. The 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 arc cases when the knife cannot'* remove the cancer, and the patient lias to die in agony*. This is where radium comes in, for, while the rays have not been able to reach deep enough to cure, they have removed many of the " distressing symptoms. The 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 the internal disease, which was the same, was incurable. If was incurable only when the surgeon’s knife could not reach the growth without the grave risk of killing the patient.