The action of radium on growing cells

Abstract

If it is difficult to correlate the published results of the clinical treatment of cancer with radium, it is still more difficult to correlate the findings in the biological study of radioactivity. My own experiments on primary mouse tumors, shortly to be published, show that it is impossible to cure primary carcinoma of mice by the application of 155 mgm. of radium bromide, even when used for long periods of time. Nevertheless, the tumors so treated shrink to a fraction of their previous size. Thus, after forty-eight hours'treatment of a tumor, about 15 mm. in diameter, with 30 mgm. of radium bromide, only a microscopic remnant could be found, von Wassermann 1 says, however, that the direct application of 55 mgm. of mesothorium for many days did not interfere with the growth of a transplanted mouse carcinoma, and yet he states that a small fragment of the same tumor irradiated for three hours with the same amount of mesothorium could not be successfully transplanted. Again, he says that carcinoma cells suspended in Ringer's solution have their “genoceptors” destroyed so that the cell cannot reproduce itself, though it is still alive and its nutrireceptors are active after three to three and a half hours. The method he uses to prove that the cells are still living is to suspend them in methylene blue solution; if this decolorizes, he considers that the cells are alive. The assumption is so questionable that it seems worth while to publish a few experiments out of a large series made in the Crocker Laboratory as a part of a general study of radium action.

Russell and Bullock 2 have recently taken issue with Von Wassermann and have drawn attention to some observations which contradict his statements, citing the experiments of Russ and Wedd, 3 who discovered mitoses six days after the irradiated grafts had been implanted.