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IAS • ANGELES TTMES 1 7. -Los Angeles, California December 5, 1959 . .. , ;, r t .. , HANGES f IN LUN VIJ ~ K R - C I T : E F SI0~ E S • .. , . • . ; _ . DALLAS, Tex., Dec. 4 UFi 20,000 pieces of lung tissue A• Veterans Administration from 402 men who died. scientist today said tissue • All the 63 who died of lung of 238 men who eancer. were smokers,, 60 of studies them using cigarettes, the re- smoked more than a half port stated. '~`pack'• 61 "cigaiettes daily Of the 55 who did not showed cell changes which smoke or were light smok- ':p r o b a b 1 y represent a ers, few changes in lung change toward cancer." cells were seen by Dr. Auer- The Tobacco Research rach and a s4ff including C o m m i t t e e immediately br. Arthur Purdy Stout of challenged the statements. Columbia Univeisity and Dr. b_v Dr. Oscar Auerbach, an' E. Cuyler Hammond' of the associate professor at New Aia Cancer'Society ; mercn. ~ ork Medical' 1'. College and a tt of the tobacco Dr Hocke Etaff inember of the East. Orange, N.J., VA hospital. committee disagreed, saying Dr. Robert C. Hockett of "recent contradictions to the the tobacco committee said' Auerbach findings m a k e "these same observations three clear points: first publicized by Dr. Auer- "First cell changea found , N-, :' bach in 1956 have not since in human lungs occur in been accepted by many oth- young or old, smokers and er pathologists doing the nonsmokers: They are not same type of work and limited to smokers. frequently studying many "Second, lungs of heavy more lUngs." smokers may show no signs " Reports to AASA of such changes, so smoking Auerbach's r e p o n t was does not necessarily lead to made at, the annual clinical these changes. s e s s i o n of the American "Third, many pathologists Medical Assn. meeting here. differ from Dr. Auerbach as He said lung cancer and to what is meant by a'pre- eonditions which lead to it cancerous' condition or by "depend almost completely 'cancer-in-situ' (change in on the number of cigarettes lining of the lung which has smoked."' not penetrated into the Tests were made on nearly lung)." a.~.., ~nfTj 1 JU •r~`~ Y 'i~i7 SnlO '~ ktll & Hammond and Lawrence harrinkel, both 9 C°neer (C ` From `ontd.) ~ of the American Cancer Society. t~ pa~nstaking ten-minute to half- Virtually all previous evidence Itnking `~ hour tnicrosc'opic examinations of each ofiih l h b bd " cgarettes ivtung canceraseenase 19,797 eaquisrteiy thin slivers of tissidilidii ue on epemoogcal stues-retrospectve from human lungs, medical researchers re- checks on whether victims had been heavyr ported last week that they had found thekdihkhh , i smoers an prospectve cecs on wet- ~o c~ e ;cigarettea dence that heavy er many heavy smokers eventually died ~ g potent cause of of the disease Wanted said critics of lung cancer At AM .,, _ . the..A.'s Dallas meet- these studies, was anatomical evidence i'tl" ing, Dr. Oscar Auerbach of East Orange showing the gradual development of taa '~# ld' ,- N.J, to how he and a distinguished coI i' l D Abh' p= `~ - cern smokersungs.r.ueracsre~ .~kague, Dr. Arthur Purdy Sout (retired ,rious reports (r9gg and 1957) on this ~ professor ofpathology at Columbia Uni-a "' . development had been chllenged on tech- -i ,` versity's College of Physicians and Sur- ncal grounds This time his fourman '. .,-• _geons), had eaamined the magnified tissue team was determined to plug every con - slides, cell by cell. Working with them ':± ~' ; were two statisticians, Dr. E. Cuyler ceivable research loophole. r*,~ Slicing the T The pathologi st 1,ree.s re- , moved the whole breathing apparatus &st~~;"tiacheobronchial tree"-j•:from the-bod- ~• ies of 402 men who died ia'Veterans Ad- l' ministration Hospita in East Orange and in eleven New York hospitals (mainly in nonindustrial towns to reduce bias that ~;might result from air pollution). It _ turned out that 63 of the men had died . of lung cancer and 339 from other causes, t-but the pathologists did not know this ' until after they had finished 1heir findings. . ` Each "tree" was cut into zo8 portions and embedded in paraffin. Fifty-five of ;, these portions,, chosen for microscopic ` study, were then sliced three microns .. thick. `; The pathologists were looking for changes in the cells, along a spectrum from normal through slightly abnormal to precancerous and finally cancerous. -.There.were many abnormalities that the pathologists rated as probably too minor to be significant; also, many patients had died of pneumonia or other lung diseases. Even including these cases, the patholo- gists found atypical cells in only 3.8,%a.of `;- slides from ' nonsmokers and ro.9%a -'of those from occasional cigarette smokers. Dormant Danger. But even moderate regular smoking went with a startling rise in the chart for' •atypical ce11s: for men who smoked less than half a pack daily, it soared to 90.6% of the slides. In the half-pack to one-pack brackei, it was 97%; for one to two packs, 99.3%; more than two packs„ 99•6%; and in lung can- cer victims 99•7%. Y For the various stages of progression ,' toward overt ~ cancer, the graphs showed ~y. a similar increase with heavier smoking. -= Q Cancer-type cells lying dormant but pre- ~ sumabiy capable of' erupting into fatal ~ disease were not found in any nonsmok- ers er$ or occasionali smokers. But they oc- ~ curred in .3%Q of'slides in the group smok- ing less than half a pack daily;8% in . w the half-pack to-a-pack group; 4.g% in v( the one-to-two-packs group; and 11.4% of slides from men smoking more •than 4 4;' two packs., Zf challengers of the link between smok- ;'ing and cancer want (as they say) evi- dence based on people instead of statis- tics, this seems to be it