192
Special
Articles
BRITISH EMPIRE CANCER CAMPAIGN ANNUAL REPORT
from
A message of appreciation and confidence H.M. the King accompanies a second volumeof the report covering the year 1947 and commemorating the 25th birthday of the campaign. Several of the individual items recorded here have been noticed previously in these pages.2 The scientific advisory committee anticipates even greater activity in research as the outcome of planning, and of training and exchanging personnel with other countries. An the is to of all subcommittee study plans integrating the standing subcommittees in order to coordinate and make recommendations for future work. The main directions of extension are to be in virus and clinical fields. PENILE CANCER
Prevention, early diagnosis, surgery, and X-radiation
solutions of choice in human therapy. Prevention, it appears, may have to be begun far earlier than has hitherto been supposed. To his previous account of tumours whose incidence varied with the social scale, and thus probablywith attention to, or neglect of, hygiene,3 Sir ERNEST KENNAWAY, F.R.S., has now added some new data on cancer of the penis. This has long been known to be avoidable when circumcision is performed by Jewish rites,, but it is apparently not preventable when the operation is done in conformity with Moslem custom. The difference in results is the difference in age at operation : in explained by Jews this is undertaken at the age of 8 days, whereas in Moslems it is undertaken at the age of 14 years or later. This puts back the time for prevention very close to what Peyton Rous has described as the only ivory tower that man ever knows-the uterus. But even this .haven of immunity from carcinogens has been suspect since urethane has been reported to exert its tumourprovoking properties through the placenta.44 Probably other carcinogens are able to travel the same route ; it has always been surprising that on the whole Bittner’s agent is held back.
low as for other sites (only 53.5%), and that the number in whom the disease is of over 6 months’ standing when first seen is as high as 20%. Metastases may be present in 27% of all cases when first examined; and 20% of enlargements regarded as benign, when excised, prove The extensive data on treatment in the London hospitals here recorded were collected before the introduction of oestrogen treatment. A later series, including this form of treatment, will provide a valuable comparison. No rationale of the action of cestrogens has yet appeared, and experimental attempts to elucidate this action have been frustrated, according to Mr. E. S. HORNING, D.sc., by the tendency of transplantable prostatic carcinomas to keratinise spontaneously as well as under the influence of stilbeestrol, and even when grown alone in castrated mice. The newer therapeutic agents, like oestrogens, may modify cancer in some of its aspects, both pathological and symptomatic, but they fall far short of controlling the disease in the sense of regulating, dominating, or doing away with it. to be malignant. and follow-up of
remain the
PULMONARY CARCINOMA
Prevention of cancer of the lung is urgently needed, for its incidence is increasing at a striking rate ; the increases, each year from 1944 to 1946 were 412, 489, and 783. This continued rise has suggested an investigation into the composition of atmospheric dust, which has been initiated by the Medical Research Council and is being carried out by Sir ERNEST KENNAWAY and his team. The pertinacity and fecundity df this indefatigable alliance must be an inspiration to the discouraged. Inquiry may show that the horse has already left the stable ; for if the latent period of lung cancer is anything like that of other diseases, its cause was in operation long ago. But although gross atmospheric pollution may be decreasing, the use of oil-fired boilers is now on the increase and may conceivably be a factor in causation ; and, as the Kennaways themselves have pointed out, there is also a general increase in cigarette smoking. PROSTATE
T
Unfortunately, the clinical cancer research committee finds that the number of patients who consult a doctor within the first three months of prostatic cancer is as 1. British Empire Cancer Campaign : Twenty-fifth Annual Report, covering the Year 1947. Issued from 11, Grosvenor Crescent, London, S.W.1. 2. Lancet, 1947, ii, 835 ; Ibid, p. 512 ; Ibid, 1948, i, 561. 3. Kennaway, E. L., Kennaway, N. M. Acta Union internat. cadre Cancer, 1937, 2, 101. 4. Larsen, C. D. J. nat. Cancer Instit. 1947, 8, 63.
cases
Annual
Meeting
AT the annual meeting in London on July 19, a message was received from H.R.H. the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, president of the campaign, who expressed gratification that Lord Horder’s recent broadcast appeal had resulted in the receipt of over 10,000. He referred to the tour of the United States and Canada which is being made by a delegation headed by Lord Horder, chairman of the scientific advisory committee. Mr. J. P. LocKHART-MuMMERY, chairman of the executive committee, who proposed the adoption, of the annual report, said that since its foundation in 1923 the campaign had grown enormously ; and one of its original aims-the coordination of research-had been almost completely achieved. He agreed with Lord Horder’s suggestion that a short, non-technical survey of the campaign’s work ought to be published for the information of the lay public ; but, as editor of the annual report since the campaign’s foundation, " I have found the difficulties-and shall I say the dangersof producing one in simple language, insurmountable." In the United States a Federal grant of no less than 14 million dollars had been made for cancer research and education ; and the campaign had trebled the amount
spent annually
on
research.
The Garton medal and prize was presented by Viscount Hailsham, chairman of the grand council, to Prof. E. C. Dodds, F.R.s., who returned the prize as a contribution to the campaign’s funds.
PHARMACOPŒIAL NAMES AND APPROVED NAMES THE General Medical Council has issued a pamphlet out the names of drugs made official for the first time by their use as the titles of monographs in the British Pharmacopccia, the new edition of which comes into force on Sept. 1.1 Names for certain other drugs, for which no official monographs are provided, have been published as approved names, the intention being that if any of the drugs is eventually described in the British Pharmacopoeia, the approved name. shall become its official title. Some of the other names are registered trade-marks. It is hoped that the approved names will be generally adopted and used in prescribing. The introduction of new names for substances having pharmacopoeial names or approved names is especially deprecated ; but if a manufacturer should desire to issue under a proprietary name a drug for which an approved name has been provided, it is strongly recommended that the label shall bear the approved nameof the substance in letters no less conspicuous than those in which the proprietary name is printed or written.
setting
1. See
Lancet, July 3, p. 19.
193 The following names have addenda to the B.P., 1932, and
Pharmacopaeial
Other Stovarsol
names
Acetarsol
by
names
Decicaine Acramine Yellow Benzedrine Benzedrine Sulphate Avertin
Amphetamine Amphetamine Sulphate Bromethol Butacaine Sulphate Butyl Aminobenzoate Carbachol
Cignolin
Stilbamidine
,
’
Uroselectan-B Cardiazol
Kapilon Quinacrine Hydrochloride, U.S’.P.
Atebrin ; XIII
Atebrin Musonate Mepacrine Methanesulphonate Mersalyl, Injection of Salyrgan Methylphenobarbitone (Phemitone) Prominal Prostigmin Neostigmine Bromide Neostigmine Methylsulphate Prostigmin Nikethamide
Oxytocin, Injection Pamaquin
Coramine Pitocin
of
Plasmoquine
Pentobarbitone Sodium Pethidine Hydrochloride Phenytoin Sodium Progesterone, Injection of Silver Protein Sodium Aurothiomalate
Nembutal
DolantinDemerol
Epanutin Proluton
Protargol Myocrisin Fouadin Albucid Albucid Soluble Prontosil Album
Stibophen Sulphacetamide Sulphacetamide sodium Sulphanilamide * Sulphapyridine
Dagenan ; M. & B. 693 Germanin ; Bayer 205 ; Antrypol Theophylline with Ethylenediamine Euphyllin ; Cardophylin Pentothal Sodium Thiopentone Sodium Suramin
-
’
Vasopressin, Injection of Vinyl Ether Wool Alcohols Wool Alcohols, Ointment of
following
are new
Approved Cetrimide
Pitressin Vinethene Hartolan Wax Eucerin (Anhydrous)
approved
names :
Other
names
names
.
bromide
Cetyltrimethylammonium Cetavlon
‘
5-.Al-Cyclohexenyl-5-ethylbarbituric
Cyclobarbitone
acid ; Phanodorm 2 :
Dimercaprol
4 :
British
3-dimercaptopropanol;
Antilewisite ; BAL
Dimethylstilbami-
gluconate ;
Pento-
stam 4 : 4’Diamidinostilbene
Sulphadimidine
2-(p-Aminobenzenesulphonamide) 4 : 6-diainethylpyrimidine ; Sulphamezathine; Sulphadimethylpyri-
Thialbarbitone
5-A2-Cyclohexenyl-5-allyl-2-thio-
Thiomersalate
barbituric acid ; Kemithal Sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate; Merthiolate
4’-Diamidino-a-[3-dimethylstilbene
4-Cyclohexenyl-3-ethyl-l :
-
PAY-BEDS IN HOSPITAL UNDER the National Health Service Act nobody need pay for hospital care. But charges can be made to patients who ask for a bed in a single room or small ward (the so-called amenity bed) and to those admitted to pay-beds as the private patients of doctors belonging to the service. Regulations governing these charges have now been published.! amenity Beds."-Accommodation in a single room or small ward cannot be secured by payment unless it " is not for the time being needed by any patient on medical grounds." The charge is designed to cover the and will normally be 6s. a day for a of cost, part single room or 3s. a day for a ward with two or more beds. In hospitals where the -average daily cost of an inpatient is less than 24s. these charges will be reduced. Private Accommodation.-Provided it does not prevent their being used by any patient who urgently needs them on medical grounds, the hospital may set aside beds for patients who are prepared to pay the whole cost, being admitted as private patients under the care of their own doctor. If the hospital has insufficient data for estimating the cost of the accommodation thus set aside, the standard daily charge for such beds will be the average daily cost of an inpatient in the hospital plus 25% for a single room, 15% for a room with two beds, or 5% for a room with more than two. But since the patient will be paying privately for his medical attention it would not be reasonable for him to pay also for medical attention from the hospital staff. The standard daily charge will therefore be reduced by an amount representing the average daily cost per inpatient of the remuneration of the specialist staff, or (if the patient is admitted under the care of a general practitioner) of the whole of the medical staff. ledicczl Fees Payable by Private Patients.-The Minister has laid down a . schedule of maximum fees payable to doctors attending private patients in a hospital pay-bed. The following are examples :
Physician.-For the first consultation, 5 guineas ; for the days’ attendance (including first consultation), 10 guineas ; for each subsequent day of attendance or consultation, 1 guinea. Total not more than 25 guineas.
’
dine 2 :
4-tria-
zole ; Azoman ; Triazole
.p-Aminomethylbenezenesulphonamide ; Marfanil
Trimethylmethoxypropenylammonium bromide ; Esmodil is a 0-3% isotonic
for
solution 2 : 6-Dimethylthianthrene
emergencies,
; Dimethyldiphenylene disulphide ; Mitigal a : w-(4 : 4’-Diamidinodiphenoxy) °
pentane *
M-(4 :4’Diamidinodiphenoxy)
propane Sodium antimonyl
midine
Femergin Evipan Evipan Sodium Eucerin (Hydrous) Lipiodol
Iodoxyl Leptazol Menaphthone Mepacrine Hydrochloride
Pentamidine
anide ; Paludrine
a :
Lanette Wax SX
Hexobarbitone Hexobarbitone Sodium Hydrous Ointment Iodised Oil
-
N -p-Chlorophenyl-N ’18opropylbigu-
Yatren
Dithranol
Mesulphen
Proguanil
gluconate
Nupercaine
Hydrochloride
Emulsifying Wax Ergotamine Tartrate
Meprochol
/3-MethyIam[ino-4-hydroxypropyl-
Doryl
Diphenan
Maphenide
Pholedrine
Sodium Stibo-
Butesin
D ocn Perabrodil Butolan
Hexazole
a-Phenyl-/3-(4-hydroxy-3: 5-diiodophenyl)-propionic acid ; Biliselectan
Propamidine
Butyn
Deoxycortone acetate Diodone, Injection of
The
Pheniodol
benzene ; Veritol
Kapilon-Oral ; Prokayvit
Acetomenaphthone Amethocaine Hydrochloride Aminacrine Hydrochloride
Chiniofon Cinchocaine
been made official 1948 :
by the B.P.,
Official in the seventh addendum to the British Pharmaeopwia, 1932, but not included in the British Pharmacopaeia, 1948.
physician.
Obstetrician.-For booked cases, 40
50
guineas :
obstetric
guineas.
Psychiatrist.-Deep insulin therapy (full course), 75 guineas. Special individual psychotherapy : first consultation, 5 guineas ; subsequent consultations, 3 guineas. Ancesthetist.-For each operation, 2 guineas plus 10"of surgeon’s fee. (Pay-bed Accommodation in Hospitals Regulations. Statutory Instruments, 1948, no. 1490.
1. National Health Service
&c.)
‘