Word: burkitt
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Coincidence. It was the distribution of Burkitt's lymphoma that first implicated a virus as its possible cause. Named for British-born Surgeon Denis P. Burkitt, 53, who first described its prevalence and unusual distribution, it attacks children regardless of race, in high-rainfall, equatorial areas of low altitude. The geography of the disease is strikingly similar to that of yellow fever. And yellow fever has long been recognized as a viral infection carried by a mosquito...
...help nail down the indictment last week, Dr. Thomas M. Bell reported from a research center at Entebbe that he has isolated reovirus 3* from seven victims of Burkitt's tumor. This finding alone might well have been pure coincidence, but there was additional evidence: antibody against reovirus 3 has been found in 73% of lymphoma patients, and in only 12% of comparison subjects from the same districts. From Australia came further word: mosquitoes carrying the same type of virus have been found there...
There were as many dissents as there were theories, and since so few drugs cure viral infections, the very fact that potent anti-cancer drugs such as amethopterin (Methotrexate) and cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) have cured massive cases of Burkitt's supermalignant tumor might seem to argue against a viral cause. But doctors now believe that what the drugs do is cure or relieve a viral-induced cancer, after the virus itself may have vanished. Thus they may give the body an opportunity to develop its own mechanisms to fight the cancer...
...Really Fantastic." Reinforcing that theory, Surgeon Burkitt reported that even in cases where drugs had apparently failed, some patients later conquered their cancers in a way that suggests the workings of a powerful immune mechanism. One boy, aged seven, had a large jaw tumor and failed to benefit substantially from surgery plus a dozen courses of drug treatment. When the doctors sent him home to his village they had little hope for him. Yet nine weeks later he reappeared with his jaw healed and new bone forming. Three years later he is still healthy...
Reflecting on the fact that some of the drugs that work so dramatically in Africa are also the best known weapons against leukemia. Dr. Joseph H. Burchenal of Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Institute, said: "I am strongly persuaded that there is a close affinity between Burkitt's tumor and leukemia." But he was careful to note the difference in the effects of treatment. "The results here are really fantastic," he said. "There is nothing like this anywhere in the world. Long survivals, including apparent cure, after drug treatment for Burkitt's lymphoma are running...