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Hokitika Guardian, 23 December 1933, Page 4

The report issued by the Medical Research Council on the “Medical Uses of Radium” contains ail interesting account of the work carried out during 1932, especially as regards new situations in which radium is being used for treating malignant growths. For example, in Manchester, at the Royal Infirmary and the Holt Radium Institute, attempts are being made to cure brain tumours by means of radiation treatment, either from gold “radon” seeds (containing radium emanation) or deep X-ray therapy. It has been found that the normal brain tissue has a higher tolerance of radialiofri than had been expected, mu chis means that higher doses of radiation can be given than for tumours in other parts of the body. This has led to the discovery that the skin of the scalp has also a very much higher tolerance of radiation (about 50 per cent more) than the skin - elsewhere in the body. The degree of tolerance of the skin' is becoming of great importance now that larger amounts «f radium for available for external radiation,' for the “dose” that can be gjven to save internal growth is necessarily limited by the amount of radiation tolerated by the area of skin in the path of the rays. This question Is now being specially studied, particu* larly in relation to' th© blood supply of the skin in different parts of the body. Other important work carried out at various research centres during the year was concerned , with tho. changes in the actual cells of cancer or of normal tissue under the influence of radium. “More experimental work in radiology is done in physcal biological and pathological laboratories at the present. time than ever before,” states the report, and while it may be some time before the results of these studies can be applied to the problem of cancer, they"are fundamental to putting the whole of radiation treatment on a scientific basis.