Problems in the Treatment of Cancer

Our plain-English summary of Problems in the Treatment of Cancer, by A. Ochsner (1964).

The study

• Author: A. Ochsner
• Published: Connecticut Medicine 28(12):871-874 December (1964)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This lecture by a surgeon from the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans was presented to the Connecticut State Medical Society in Hartford in April 1964. It does not mention asbestos or mesothelioma. It discussed the difficulties of treating several cancers, including cancers of the pancreas, esophagus, stomach, lung and colon, and melanoma. The author put five-year survival for stomach cancer at about 10 to 12 per cent of all diagnosed cases. The author called bronchogenic (lung) cancer preventable and attributed it, except adenocarcinoma, to cigarette smoking. The author described work by Dr. Hatch and coworkers, who examined the peripheral blood of more than 100 patients. As scanned, the text says 10 per cent of those with proved bronchogenic carcinoma had cancer cells in the peripheral arterial blood. It gives 70 per cent for lesions apparently in the peripheral area of the lung, and another subgroup's figure is illegible. The author argued that survival statistics should include all cases, including patients who died after surgery. The lecture draws on the clinic's own experience, such as its criteria for removing cancer that had spread to the lung, but is not a formally designed study.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Narrative lecture on cancer treatment drawing on the author's and the clinic's clinical experience, presented at a medical society meeting; not a formally designed study
• Who was studied: No single defined study population; a talk given to the Connecticut State Medical Society, Hartford, Connecticut, April 1964
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure is discussed; the author attributes bronchogenic cancer (except adenocarcinoma) to cigarette smoking
• Main results:
  • The author stated that five-year survival for stomach cancer was about 10 to 12 per cent of all cases in which the diagnosis is made
  • Dr. Hatch and coworkers examined the peripheral blood of more than 100 patients; as scanned, 10 per cent of those with proved bronchogenic carcinoma had neoplastic cells in the peripheral arterial blood
  • As scanned, the figure for lesions apparently in the peripheral area of the lung was 70 per cent; the figure for another lesion location is illegible
  • The author described the clinic's criteria for resecting metastatic lesions of the lung, including no evidence of metastases elsewhere
  • The author argued that cancer survival statistics should include all cases, not only patients who survived the operation
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded by expressing hope that, once the cause of the change from normal to malignant cells is discovered, the treatment problems discussed would no longer exist

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma, Stomach Cancer, Bronchogenic Carcinoma, Adenocarcinoma.

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