Radium and Cancer.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 100, 30 December 1913, Page 5

Radium and Cancer.

INTERESTING OPERATION.

HOPEFUL OF A CURE. , fP" EIIOTEIO TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT j Times—Sydney Sun Special Cables. (Received 8 a.m.) New, York, December 29. Radium valued at £20,000 has been temporarily embedded in the left shoulder of 31 r Robert BVemner, a .NewJersey Congressman, in an attempt to cure an extensive eancerous growth. Dr. How-ark Kelly operated, insertiing radium in clever rubber coated tubes inside twelve incisions with the aid of cocaine.

It is expeeted that the treatment will result in the degeneration of the cancer ceils solely by Gammary's Alpha Beta rays being filtered out.

The use of radium, as a cure for | cancer-is now being exploited considerably in London, and particularly at the Cancer Research Department of, the Middlesex Hospital, and some j rather Remarkable instances of the', results effected there have been cop-j ied from the case note-book of the. Daily Mail's medical correspondent. Thes taff will not use the word "cure." J preferring "improvement.'" But here, arc the cases:—',!) A man of 27, admitted on August" 2-3, wiv.li a large j sarcomatous growth, blocking up the back of the nose and throat behind |the soft palate; all sense of smell gone, could not breathe through the nose, deaf in the right ear. A platinum tube, containing 82 milligrams of j j radium, was embedded in the tumor ! for 12 hours. Five, days later the 'growth had shrunk, and smell and breathing through'the nose were regained. On September 16 no- traces • of the growth' could be found, hear-J ing was completely restored, and the j patient was discharged. (2) Still in, hospital. A woman of 25, .with a, large abdominal sarcoma. Twelve days ago an incision was made, and a tube containing 14 milligrams of radium (the hospital's entire stock) inserted for 21 hours. Patient's weight has risen from sst loz to 6st 10oz, and the tumor has shrunk by half. (3) A dispenser from a London special hospital. A hard growth on the back of his tongue was found to ' an epithelioma cancer . so far advanced as to be inoperable. Eightytwo milligrams of radium were embedded. Three weeks later no -.signs of the tongue growth could be found, ami lie was discharged, apparently cured, but for two or three secondarily involved glands about the collarbone, which will be surgicially removed later if necessary. The hospital laments that it has only 141 milligrams of-radium, the whole of which sometimes one patient needs for 24 hours' at a > stretch, so that .others must wait.