Hungarian Americans of Cleveland
Cleveland Press Articles
Gain Is Made in Cancer Fight, U.S. Hungarian Doctors Told
By Fraser Kent
Plain Dealer, NOV 29 1970
When a solid tumor cannot be reduced by radiation, it may respond to a combination of drugs and radio-therapy.
A progress report on such a drug was presented here yesterday to the newly organized Hungarian Medical Association of American, by Dr. Julian Ambrus, of Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, N. Y.
The chemical, code-tagged AB132, has been used on abut 175 persons with lung cancer in the last eight years. All were near death and could not be treated by surgery or drugs alone. In the most recent study, 40 such patients were treated with intensive doses of radiation; quantities high enough to produce toxic reactions. All died within three years.
ANOTHER 40 received daily injections of AB132 for two or three weeks before being exposed to radiation. Four survived for three years or more; two are still alive, eight years later. Much better results could be expected, Dr. Ambrus indicated, if less critically ill patients had been selected. This probably will be the next phase of investigation.
He said the drug's side effects appear confined to the nervous system, producing LSD-like dreams at night, and (in does higher than those used clinically) convulsions. The drug was synthesized by Thomas Bardos, also of Buffalo.
