Ounce of Prevention

Soft music seeps past oyster-toned walls with their bold paintings. Behind the teak-top desk sits a comely receptionist. The place looks like an advertising agency, but the callers who arrive there have not come on corporate errands. They have come to New York's modern Strang Clinic for their annual cancer checkup, paying heed to the American Cancer Society's estimate that fully 42% of the 295,000 Americans who will die of cancer in 1965 could have been saved through timely diagnosis and treatment.

Medicine's search for the causes of cancer accounts for millions of dollars every year. And success, when it comes, may pay off by pointing the way to surer cures or reliable preventives. Meanwhile, early detection remains the best defense against an inexorable killer.

Immediate Consultation. A pioneer in assembly-line checkups, Strang Clinic was set up at Memorial Hospital in 1940, moved downtown to its own building 18 months ago. It gives blood and urine analyses, X rays, and an examination of all body surfaces and orifices, for a fixed $40 fee. If a doctor in one of the twelve private cubicles finds disturbing signs, a consultant is immediately available. The conclusion of both men is noted in the patient's record, and he then returns to his own doctor for treatment, if necessary. In 23 years, Strang doctors have examined 110,000 patients, found cancer in 1,500, precancerous conditions in 12,000, and early signs of diabetes, heart disease and tuberculosis in another 40,000.

Similar clinics operate in other U.S. cities. Detroit's Cancer Detection Center handles 6,000 patients annually, and uses 32 Wayne State University doctors on a rotating schedule. In Chicago, the George and Anna Fortes Cancer Prevention Center takes only patients not currently under a doctor's care (about 7,500 this year), bolsters its examinations with educational films on cancer warning signs. The University of Minnesota Cancer Prevention Clinic takes patients from 45-70, the years when the onset of cancer is most likely. The Los Angeles Cancer Prevention Society, founded on a shoestring, now has its own lab and X-ray facilities in a modern three-story building.

Saving Lives. Though the low-cost clinics like Strang offer diagnosis, not treatment, they sometimes meet opposition from local medical groups fearful of their effect on doctors' incomes. At their best, though, they free busy practitioners from the routine chore of checking hundreds of well patients to find the few who need prompt treatment--a search that has proved eminently worthwhile. Says Strang Director Dr. Emerson Day: "When cancer is diagnosed in a localized stage, cure or effective control is relatively simple."

If comprehensive checkups were universal, the lives of a startling number of cancer victims would be saved. Based on the clinic's experience, Strang's Dr. Day is convinced that early diagnosis and treatment could prevent 100% of the 10,000 deaths to be expected in 1965 from cervical cancer, 100% of the 4,000 from skin cancer, at least 65% of the 43,000 from colon-rectum cancer, and 80% of the 26,000 from breast cancer.

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