Cancer in Russia

In the Soviet Union, as in other industrial nations, cancer ranks second only to heart and artery diseases as a cause of death. But Western medical men have had only a sketchy idea of what Russian medicine was doing about this universal plague. In Moscow last week, at the Eighth International Cancer Congress, some 5,000 delegates from all over the world (including 600 from the U.S.) got a revealing view of Soviet research into the origins and treatment of cancer.

With an almost infinite variety of climate, peoples and living habits, the Soviet Union itself is a vast human laboratory for studying the many varieties of cancer, said Leningrad's Dr. A. V. Chaklin, one of 1,800 Russians who attended the Congress. He has headed expedition teams over a five-year period, covered the Soviet Union's 15 constituent republics and most of its 100 nationalities. Russian researchers simply move into the regular medical offices ("polyclinics) and require every patient, whether he has come in with a broken arm or athlete's foot, to submit to a cancer examination.

Peppered Tea. Skin cancer provided the Chaklin teams with their most neatly classified data. The disease results largely from overexposure to the sun, and is therefore most common in Russia's south. But its frequency varies with tribal fashions. Uzbeks, who wear small skull caps, have almost twice as much skin cancer on the head as the Turkomans, who protect themselves under big fur hats on the blazing desert.

In the central Asian heartland, around fabled Bokhara and Samarkand, cancer of the mouth is a common consequence of chewing nas--a mixture of tobacco, lime, ashes and cottonseed oil. But nas chewers have far less lung cancer than Soviet cigarette smokers (the government is working on an improved filter). Cancer of the esophagus is most frequent in parts of central Asia and Siberia, where a favorite beverage is scalding hot tea, sometimes dosed with pepper to give it an extra kick.

Smokeless Smoking. Geography as such seems to have nothing to do with cancer of the stomach, which is increasing in the U.S.S.R. while declining in the U.S. Smoked fish and meats have been suspected as a cause (TIME, March 2), so Soviet scientists are developing what they call "smokeless smoking," using chemicals instead of wood fires.

Many American researchers have swung round to the belief that viruses may be a factor in all human cancers (but not their sole cause). The Russians are determined eclectics. Along with the viruses, they blame chemicals (including those from polluted air), radiation of several kinds, and a variety of common diseases.

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