Radium Treatment

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 865, 8 January 1930, Page 8

Radium Treatment

LIGHT ON CANCER PROBLEM AN illuminating review of radium treatment in its relationship to the cancer problem has been issued by the English National Radium Commission.' In it, misleading claims are compared with the true position as it appears today. The commission claims, moreover, to have swept aside the tenacious theory that cancer is either infectious or hereditary except in one rare form.

The interest of the whole world has been stirred recently by advances made in the radium treatment of malignant disease, and in March of last year a special committee in England issued a report which led to the creation of the National Radium Fund, now amounting to £300,000. An increased supply of radium will soon be available in England and the organising work in New Zealand, as in other parts of the Empire, are having similarly beneficial results. The preliminary survey of the present position has been made with the object of assessing the proper value of radium, without either taking an exaggerated view of its properties, or underrating them. Recently a member of the English Medical Society asserted that on a five years’ average they had cures by radium in 60 per cent, of operable cases of cancer, 37 per cent, in borderline cases, and 28 per cent, in inoperable cases. “The commission would strongly deprecate such extravagant claims,” comments the report. “in the opinion of the commission figures such as these can only be described as cruelly misleading.” The true facts of the present position as known to the commission indicate that for many years it has been proved that radium lias a powerful effect on various affections of the skin, and that rodent ulcer and cancer of the skin can usually be cured completely by its use. IMPROVED METHODS During the last few years the treatment has been greatly improved by the use of radium needles or of radium “seeds,” which are buried in the tissues round the growth. It can be stated definitely that by this a big step forward has been made. Encouraging as are these results, it must not be assumed that radium can cure ail cancers, for this is not yet the case, and many problems remain to be solved. The attack on the primary growth, in a sense, is the easiest part of the task, but radium therapy must aim at destroying not only the primary growth but also any extensions which may have formed in the neighbouring glands. In the course of the work one point has come out quite clearly: the destruction of a primary growth followed by its complete disappearance does not generally affect the development of secondary growths, if these are already formed, any more than'

excision by the knife will cure if there are secondary deposits. “Again we must emphasise the fact that treatment of cancer, if it is to be successful, must be undertaken early,” warns the , commission. “An essential part of the campaign against cancer consists of the education and intelligent co-operation of the public.” The relative value of radium in the treatment of cancer as compared with surgical excision, in the opinion of the commission is a difficult point to assess, for the reason that sufficient facts are not yet available. One great point in favour of radium is that its use does not involve the risks and suffering associated with extensive and mutilating operations which are so distressing to all concerned. The operation of introducing the radium is in itself a comparatively slight one and while the radium is in position the patient suffers little if any discomfort. CANCER NOT HEREDITARY Under these conditions patients should be far more ready to consult their doctors instead of concealing or disregarding their symptoms until it is too late. “It is desirable,” continues the report, to deal with two prevalent misconceptions. First, there is no proof whatever that cancer is either infectious or contagious: secondly, there is no evidence that cancer is hereditary except in one rare form of cancer of the eye. These fears, therefore, can both be dismissed. “To sum up, a good case has been made for the increased employment of radium. A new weapon and a powerful one has been placed in the hands of the medical profession, though how effective it may be it is impossible, as yet, to say. Nor is it established whether patients with malignant disease should be treated with radium alone, or with radium combined with surgery or X-rays. It is probable that a judicious use of all three methods may be required. What is required at the moment is work, intensive work on the many problems which present themselves, combined with careful documentation of the methods used and registration of the results obtained.

“It cannot be too strongly emphasised that in unskilled hands radium may be highly dangerous ... on the other hand, in radium, humanity possesses the best means at present available for combating certain forms of cancer.”