Tuberculosis Progress

Five tuberculosis conventions/- met simultaneously in Chicago last week. Three dramatic new developments were reported in the fight against the disease which still takes nearly 60,000 lives a year in the U.S.:

Lung Operations. Most dramatic is the removal of whole lungs (pneumonectomy) or parts of lungs (lobectomy)--a drastic operation which sometimes completely extirpates the disease. This operation was once so hazardous (about 35% mortality) that it was used only in otherwise hopeless cases. But Drs. Richard Overholt and Norman Wilson of Boston told the American Trudeau Society that the technique has now reached a point where the operation "should be considered" early in tuberculosis and not used as a last resort.

Chemotherapy. Doctors used to think that the tough-skinned tubercle bacillus would never succumb to a drug. But promin, diasone, promizole and the brand-new diaminodiphenylsulfone (all sulfa drugs) have showed good results against tuberculosis in guinea pigs, fair promise to human patients (TIME, Dec. 6). Drs. Horton Corwin Hinshaw and William H. Feldman, of the Mayo Clinic, told the Society that tuberculosis will probably succumb to a drug some day but that it is too early to evaluate any drug tried so far. For the sake of Europe, which is suffering a wartime tuberculosis increase, they urged that search for such a drug be speeded up.

Mass X Rays. Small-size (4-by-5-in. and 35-mm.) X rays were the main subject of the Mississippi Valley Conference on Tuberculosis. These films, in use about two years and used on recruits by the Army, cut the cost of X rays1-c- to 6-c- apiece (price of regular 14-by-17 film: 65-c-), and "make possible mobile X-ray units which can examine 50,000 people a year. Drs. G. A. Hedberg and E. J. Terrill of Duluth told of one unit which had surveyed an already carefully examined county and found active tuberculosis in one out of every 200 people Xrayed.

If the U.S. would provide itself with enough such units (cost: about $15,000 apiece), all U.S. citizens could be X-rayed every year or so.* Said Drs. Hilleboe & Gould of the Public Health Service: "The final eradication of tuberculosis from the U.S. is well within our grasp."

/-The five: National Tuberculosis Association, Southern Tuberculosis Conference, Mississippi Valley Conference on Tuberculosis, National Conference of Tuberculosis Secretaries, American Trudeau Society. *Regina, Sask. (pop. nearly 60,000) is currently X-raying the chests of more than 50,000 of its citizens.

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