Correspondents' Correspondence Checking Cancer
KALB, MARVIN
Checking Cancer Washington—This is a story about 30 mice involved in one of the most exciting medical experiments of modern time. The mice live in Dr. Daniel Dexter's laboratory at the Brown...
...Daniel Dexter's laboratory at the Brown University Medical Center in Providence, Rhode Island...
...Then he experimented with the 30 mice, and it happened again...
...There is no way of knowing whether Dexter is on to something historic, but if he is on to anything at all, one wonders why the research in this area seems to be limited to Providence...
...It happened every time he used DMF...
...Although Dexter's experiment has enormous possibilities, it is still in an infant stage...
...If the preliminary findings are sustained, tests will be made on rabbits and monkeys...
...Should all continue to go well, within three to five years there could be tests on human beings, too...
...He began to experiment with human colon cancer cells, and he found that when he added DMF to them the rate of reproduction did in fact slow down: the cells began to grow bigger, look more normal and mature...
...The first group of 20 quickly began to develop malignant tumors...
...That is why cancer drugs can be highly toxic, killing not only the fast-growing cancer cells but also noncancerous cells in the area...
...He experimented with breast cancer cells from mice and humans, and it happened there...
...Why, in other words, pursuing promising leads in checking cancer cannot more quickly become national endeavors.—Marvin Kalb...
...The other 10 were injected with the same cancerous cells, but they also received an injection of a substance called dimethyl-formamide, better known as DMF...
...The approach in surgery has been that it is best to catch the cancer early, cut out what is damaged, and hope you've got it all...
...Up until this time, the operating assumption of most cancer specialists has been that the process of cancer decay, once it sets in, is irreversible—the damage cannot be cured, it can only be destroyed...
...He examined cancerous cells and decided they looked rather immature, as though they had never grown to their full potential, as though they were spending more time reproducing than developing themselves...
...As a precaution against excessive optimism, however, Dr...
...Calibrese added that a lot of research remains to be done...
...According to the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Dexter began to resurrect an old idea, making in effect a new assumption...
...Twenty of them were recently injected with human colon cancer cells...
...What happened with these two groups of mice could prove to be very important...
...of the second category of 10, those injected with both the cancerous cells and the DMF, just one developed a malignant tumor, and then only after 12 weeks had passed...
...Dexter, who is 38 years old, has been working on his hypothesis for three years now...
...If the cells could be taught to slow down their rate of reproduction and devote more time to maturing, Dexter thought, maybe this could be a step on the road to slowing down the spread of cancer in human beings...
...Paul Calibrese, a cancer specialist himself, says that the Roger Williams General Hospital in Providence has been designated a clinical cancer research center by the National Cancer Institute, and it will soon support a major test involving 50-100 mice...
...Dexter's boss, Dr...
Vol. 61 • October 1978 • No. 21
