TREATMENT OF CANCER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22986, 15 September 1936, Page 10

TREATMENT OF CANCER

HIGH VOLTAGE X-RAYS i DEVELOPMENTS ABROAD PROFESSOR LABY'S OBSERVATIONS (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, Sept. 14. A statement that he was inclined to the opinion that for the conditions in Australia and New Zealand the use of such high voltages as in 1,000,000-volt X-ray was not justified, but that an increase above the 200,000 volts nominally in use in both countries was needed, was made to-night by Professoi T. H. Laby, F.R.S., D.Sc., consulting physicist to the Department of Health in the Commonwealth of Australia and professor of natural philosophy in the University of Melbourne, who is at present in Wellington on his return to Australia after trip abroad inquiring into the use of X-rays and radium in the treatment of cancer. Professor Laby was from 1909 to 1915 professor of physics at Victoria University College, Wellington, and is at present external examiner in physics to the University of New Zealand. He will leave by the Avvatea to-morrow for Sydney, via Auckland. Professor Laby visited leading cancer clinics of France, England and the United States. His visit to France was the third for that purpose. He found, he said, that the French Government had established a cancer institute some two or three years ago in one of the suburbs of Paris, and it was the most magnificently equipped and housed hospital he had ever seen. ■ The object of his visit, Professor Laby continued, was to discover whether it was desirable to introduce into Australia the use of ihil-lion-volt X-rays. 'He found that one such equipment v/as being established at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, and there were four or five in use in the United States of America. He visited two of the American clinics which had had experience with the use of these rays. He was inclined to think that for the conditions in Australia and New Zealand the use of such high voltages was not justified, but an increase above the 200,000 volts that was nominally in use in both countries was needed. One factor that was relevant to the question of million-volts, said Professor Laby, was that Professor Lawrence, a distinguished American physicist and the inventor of an instrument called the cyclotron, had reported that investigations made by medical men and biologists in his laboratory indicated that neutron (a recently-discovered radiation) was more effective in the treatment of malignant disease thsp X-rays. While such - a conclusion was to be accepted with reserve, it was relevant to the making of plans for the use of very high energy X-rays. Professor Laby said he had learnt something of the problems in New Zealand in the use of the radium and X-rays in conjunction with surgery in the treatment of disease, and he found a certain similarity with the problem in Australia. The four principal hospital centres corresponded with the Stages of Australia, and they had, too, to exercise the greatest economy in expenditure. There had been established just before'he went abroad in connection with the physics laboratory in Melbourne, an X-ray laboratory where the instruments required in X-ray therapy could be standardised for the whole of Australia and wjiere research work in relation to the same subject would be carried on. The laboratory for the purpose had been constructed on modern lines. The question of co-ordination of the work of the treatment centres in the various States in the work of this central laboratory was similar to the problem in New Zealand. He had seen the physical work which had been started in the Dominion under the auspices of the New Zealand branch of the British Empire Cancer Campaign by funds provided by the Travis Trust, Christchurch, and it seemed to him that an excellent beginning had been made. Professor Laby emphasised that he spoke as a layman in medical matters and while he spoke of the use of X-rays and radium he did not express any opinion as to when those agencies should be used in the treatment of any case. It was evident that in the treatment of malignant disease it was a combination of the three agencies of surgery, radium, and X-rays that was now followed and it was the problem of the medical man to determine whether one of these agencies or a combination of them was the treatment to be used. It was the object of the physicist to enable the medi cal man to carry out the treatment he intended, To do that required a very high degree of skill on the part of the medical man and the physicist and certain very specialised hospital and physical equipment. *