Twenty surgeons in different parts of the country this month will start sprinkling chemicals during operations on selected cancer patients.
This will signal the beginning of a two-year experiment in the hope of finding chemical agents that will halt or kill human
cancer cells.
Details of the experiment were revealed here today by one of the nation's top surgeons, Dr. I. S. Ravdin of Philadelphia, at a sectional meeting of the American College of Surgeons.
The mass test is aimed at coming up with a cure for the disease that takes the lives of 250,000 persons in the United States each year. >
First Experiment
It is the first national cancer experiment bringing together persons with cancer and drugs that have shown some success in inhibiting cancer in animals, Dr. Ravdin said.
Chairman of the ACS board of regents, Dr. Ravdin was a member of the team of surgeons that operated on President Eisenhower for ileitis last year.
At a Roosevelt hotel press conference, Dr. Ravdin said chemistry may hold the answer that surgery and X-rays have failed to provide.
"If we knew what caused cancer, we might be able to take short cuts," Ravdin explained.
...Dr. Howard Mahorner, clinical professor at LSU, who is chairman of the arrangements committee, said a total registration! of 2500 is expected for the surgeons' and nurses' meetings.
