CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 5, 165-173, Copyright
© 1955 by American Cancer Society
Chemotherapy of Cancer
David A. Karnofsky M.D.1
1 The Chemotherapy Service, Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases, and the Division of Clinical Chemotherapy, Sloan-Kettering Division of Cornell University Medical College, New York, New York.
The chemotherapy of cancer will continue to be a major area of biological and medical research until chemicals are found that control the growth of, or obliterate, all forms of the disease. Thus far, as a result of recent efforts, drugs have been introduced into clinical practice that exert regular therapeutic effects on some forms of neoplastic disease. They are useful in the management of many patients with nonresectable or disseminated cancer.
A number of indirect benefits to the cancer patient have accrued from the work in chemotherapy. It has stimulated active concern for patients with advanced cancer, and, as a result, these patients are better cared for, and all the resources of medicine are being brought to bear on their individual problems. It has provided productive opportunities for clinical research, particularly in those patients who demand active therapy during the course of a relentless disease. It has kept patients and their families hopeful and cheered by the fact that something is being done. It has trained physicians to regard disseminated cancer as another form of chronic disease and impressed on them the therapeutic rewards from the skilled management of their patients through a sometimes rocky, progressive, and often protracted clinical course.
