The Trypsin Treatment of Cancer.

The trypsin treatment of cancer which is still being tested, has at least given us something of value in the lotio pancreatis. This pancreatic lotion, diluted with an equal volume of freshly distilled water, is freely applied on gauze or absorbent cotton to the cleansed surface of the breaking down tissues. In inoperable cervical cancers a pledget soaked in the solution is applied to the cervix through the speculum or a small gauze drain is introduced into the open uterus, with resulting relief from hemorrhage, odor, discharge and pain. The diseased tissues are progressively digested and thrown off in a thin grayish discharge not unlike digested gastric contents. As the sloughing is thus anticipated the odor is distinctly lessened and also the tendency to hemorrhage.

Howard Kelly has pointed out that much of the severe pain so common in advanced cases is due to a choked cervix with the retained discharges forming a pyometra, and complete relief follows evacuation of this fluid, thus keeping the canal open. As the drain soaked in the pancreatic lotion digests the breaking down tissue it also prevents clotting from oozing blood vessels. This doubtless accounts for the lessened pain, which returned with severity in a case where the treatment was discontinued for some days.

Any physician who has a hopeless case of cervical cancer will welcome anything which can rob the disease of some of its horrors for both patient and attendant.

LYDIA ROSS, M. D.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.