The Case of Benjamin Twaddle

One of the few forms of cancer which can be relieved to some extent by medication is cancer of the prostate gland, and one of the most effective relieving agents is stilbestrol, a synthetic female sex hormone. Patients have gotten as much as ten years of borrowed time by stilbestrol (either alone or in conjunction with surgery). When the treatment is successful, the malignancy is arrested both at its original site in the prostate and in the metastases (cancerous colonies in other parts of the body). Until recently, however, no case had been reported in which the cancer was known to be destroyed.

Benjamin Twaddle, a 66-year-old paperhanger from Lynn, was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston four years ago, with advanced cancer of the prostate which had spread widely through his body. After 15 weeks' treatment he was able to go back to work, taking daily doses of stilbestrol. Periodic checkups showed continued improvement, but a few weeks ago Patient Twaddle fell downstairs, broke his neck and died.

He had arranged to give his body to Massachusetts General for autopsy. What the pathologists found was the first known case in which both the original prostatic cancer and the outlying colonies in the bones had disappeared. The latter had been completely replaced by scar tissue. There is no way of knowing whether Benjamin Twaddle's cancer would have recurred if he had lived longer. The significance of his case is that this once, at least, stilbestrol helped the human body to destroy a prostatic cancer and not merely arrest it.

Of every 100 male cancer victims, ten have cancer of the prostate, but only one of the ten gets to a doctor in time for successful treatment. In the current American Journal of Surgery, Dr. Robert Gutierrez of New York suggests that this proportion may eventually be raised to eight out of ten. His method: stilbestrol is used first to reduce an advanced cancer (too far gone to be surgically removed) to smaller, more manageable size. Then, he says, the growth can be cut out and the patient may have years of useful life.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.