The Press: Viruses & Cancer

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"They laughed when I sat down at my test tubes." That is how the - University of California's Nobel-prizewinning Virologist Wendell M. Stanley might have begun his San Francisco lecture. For many physicians thought that Stanley had gone much too far when he suggested that viruses, or virus-like particles, might be responsible for all forms of cancer. But in support of his hypothesis, Stanley last week marshaled a phalanx of evidence from more than a dozen high-powered researchers as well as from his own laboratories.

Said Stanley: "Since there is no evidence that human cancer is infectious, and because viruses are infectious agents, many investigators believe that they cannot be important in the causation of human cancer." Not necessarily true, argued Stanley.

Viruses are known to cause many animal tumors, have been shown to be bafflingly versatile—both infectious and noninfectious in turn, depending upon a variety of complex technical factors. Stanley noted many oddities about viruses: man has coursing through his body many kinds that were unknown a few years ago; they can mutate to new strains that cause different disease symptoms.

A real puzzler: viruses are closely related to the genes that determine inherited characteristics—so closely that they have been dubbed "naked genes." This may help explain what some researchers regard as inherited tendencies to cancer. Concluded Stanley: "The time has come when we should change our thinking about cancer-virus relationships."

Whatever the mechanics of cancer causation, early detection is essential. A case in point: lung cancer, which will not show up in chest X ray during its earlier stages. When it does show, it is often too late. The trick has been to get cells from lung secretions to make "Papanicoulaou smears" like those made famous in detecting cancer of the cervix and uterus.

In San Francisco last week Gustav J. Beck of Manhattan's Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center manned a demonstration booth to show general practitioners how easily they can now do just this in their own offices—with gadgets that look like babies' croup kettles. They generate a "superheated Aerosol," a mist containing minute droplets of 15% salt solution and 20% propylene glycol (a wetting agent) at 125° F. The patient inhales this hot fog for half an hour. The salt solution draws out fluid from bronchial cells and from the myriad tiny air-exchange cells (alveoli) in his lungs. The wetting agent helps bring out more fluid that contains cells. The patient coughs this up. When the substance is put under the microscope, an expert cancer detective can spot abnormal cells that indicate the beginnings of cancer and the need for treatment.