World Marks 60th Anniversary of Chemotherapy

Sept. 27, 2006 — -- This week marks the 60th anniversary of the first described use of chemotherapy to treat cancer.

With it, an interesting picture of wartime science re-emerges.

Nearly everyone associates chemotherapy with cancer treatment, but very few know the history behind the therapy.

The use of chemical poisons -- commonly in early 20th-century warfare -- had been secretly tested to treat cancer since the 1940s.

It wasn't until after a spectacular event in Bari, Italy, during World War II that this research finally came to light.

In the crowded harbor at Bari, Italy, the Liberty ship John Harvey was docked, harboring 2,000 mustard-gas bombs.

An early-morning air raid by Axis powers on Dec. 2, 1943, sunk many of the ships in the harbor, including the John Harvey, depositing its dangerous chemical cargo into the sea.

No one aboard the John Harvey survived to warn the sailors and civilians swimming to safety.

It wasn't until these survivors broke out in skin irritations and ulcers that an expert in chemical warfare, Lt. Col. Stewart Alexander, was called to investigate.

Within several days, Alexander noticed that the patients' white blood cell levels were decreasing rapidly and that they were becoming anemic.

He began to wonder, might nitrogen mustard's effects have some medical use?

Alexander's research on the effects of mustard gas gained much attention, opening the door for a new technique to treat cancer: chemotherapy.

Today, chemotherapy has saved thousands of lives, but the research hasn't ended.

Dr. Elisabeth Heath, a chemotherapy expert at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, says that "we are now learning how to use chemotherapy in a more focused manner."

Through clinical trials, Heath says, researchers are learning how to "reduce the side effects and make the overall cancer treatment more effective."

For example, new methods of administering chemotherapy are being developed that could help limit side effects.