Simple Experimental Cancer Research

Abstract

We have nearly every year summaries of the current status of cancer research. These orient the worker and are valuable. One learns from them that steps of progress are visible, though often small. Without attempting much summation, I shall describe briefly the course of a single simple but long continued experiment with animal cancer, hoping that it may be one of these short steps, and shall then suggest a much longer step. This experiment concerns the helminth parasites which infest the intestinal tract of mice fated to develop spontaneous mammary cancer. The mice in question are laboratory albinos of the common house mouse, and the parasites are cestodes of occasional and nematodes of almost universal presence. These orders have already been linked with cancer. It is pertinent to recall that some cancers have a parasitic origin and that cestodes and nematodes furnish striking and authentic examples. It is true that in such cases the cancer has arisen at the site of infestation or in tissues closely adjacent, and not at a distance, though we now know that the action of cancerogenic agents is not necessarily confined to the area of application.