X-Ray Experts

Hundreds of dapper, middle-aged men buzzed around a spooky, blacked-out picture gallery in Cincinnati's Netherland Plaza Hotel. They were X-ray specialists, members of the American Roentgen Ray Society, who met last week to exhibit their art, discuss their progress.

Cyclotron for Cancer. Winner of the Society's gold medal was Dr. John Hundale Lawrence of Berkeley, Calif., brother of Nobelman Ernest Orlando Lawrence, who splits atoms with a giant cyclotron. Brother John said last week that cyclotron bombardment can give any element the emanating qualities of radium. These radioactive elements, when swallowed in liquid form, have two great uses for medicine: 1) in minuscule amounts, they settle in specific organs for a brief time, then can be traced in their journey through the body, providing a clue to the process of growth and repair; 2) in larger doses they settle in the organs for a longer time. There, like radium or Xray, they destroy cancers.

Of the body's elements, about 22 have been made radioactive. So far only three are now in actual clinical use for cancer treatment. The three:

> Phosphorous, which settles in the bone marrow and spleen, is used for the cancer-like blood disease, leukemia.

> Iodine, which lodges in the thyroid, eats away cancer tissue without disturbing the tiny parathyroid glands which lie underneath. In fact, said Dr. Lawrence, the entire gland can be removed "blood-lessly."

> Strontium of the calcium group sinks to the bones, has been used to treat cancers which migrate from breast to bone.

T. B. Snapshots. Only a classical full-sized (14 by 17 inches) X-ray on celluloid can give a perfect picture of the lungs. But these plates take too long for mass examination, cost anywhere from $2 to $25. Last week Dr. Arthur Carlisle Christie of Washington, D.C. discussed two new methods of X-ray that are quick and cheap: miniature films and paper rolls.

The films (four inches by five) are used to take photographs of an X-ray image on a fluoroscopic screen. (A fluoroscope shows up internal organs but does not take permanent pictures.) With a special camera, a technician can take one picture a minute, for about 25-c-. Although difficult to interpret, the films are only a trifle less accurate than large plates. They have been used on thousands of people in several large cities, notably Detroit and Chicago.

Pictures on paper film are standard size, taken on a long roll, instead of separate celluloid plates. Over 125 X-rays can be made in an hour for a little less than a dollar apiece. In Manhattan, paper films have been used to X-ray 50,000 draftees and National Guardsmen.

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