A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

GENERAL SYMPTOMS.—No general symptoms are manifest until the disease has made considerable advance, and often not until there begin to be degenerations in the tumor. It would seem, indeed, that the growth of cancer was not a morbifacient process, and that constitutional disturbance results from the septic influence exerted by the necrosis of the tumor.

The absorption and circulation of the products of decomposition at the extremities of the tumor through the nervous centres and secreting organs soon induce nervous ailments and derange the functions of all the important vital organs. A continuance of the derangement thus inaugurated, and kept up, eventuates in fully-developed septic fever, by which the energies of the patient are exhausted. The uniformity with which septicæmia terminates the existence of these unfortunate patients renders the exceptions to the above description very rare indeed. While patients think they are being eaten up by cancer of the womb, they are really dying from slow poison caused by absorption of dead tissues.

DIAGNOSIS.—In the great majority of cases the diagnosis of cancer is easily arrived at. For reasons already stated the disease is not suspected until the deposit is extensive and obvious changes in the shape and consistence of the cervix occur. It is enlarged, very hard, and generally irregular in shape. In most instances it is very much enlarged, measuring from one to ten times its natural diameter; the tissues are devoid of elasticity; and nodosities, projections, and sulci deform the cervix in a manner and to a degree that change the shape of the organ as nothing else does. Add to this the stinking sero-sauguinolent discharge, and the diagnosis is complete. By the time these physical changes become diagnostic features of the case the uterus becomes fixed, the immobility being obviously dependent upon the extension of the deposit to the vagina, bladder, and contents of the broad ligament. The invaded tissues become as hard and unimpressible as the uterus. We could hardly mistake cancer in this stage of development for any other disease, and as the general practitioner will seldom see it before the most of these changes have occurred, the diagnosis will generally be easy. When the tissues break down to a considerable extent the ulcers, if they can be so called, are very irregular in shape, greatly excavated, have a hard, rough, granular bottom, and are not tender to the touch. Generally they bleed upon being handled. The hardness, enlargement, irregularity of shape, and fixedness are as conspicuous features during the process of destruction as they are in the stage of deposit.

The demonstrative portion of the diagnosis, however, is derived from the histology of the deposit. "Histological examination of the changed uterine tissues shows, as in every carcinoma, a stroma of small alveoli filled with polymorphous cells, generally arranged without order; sometimes those of the periphery are implanted regularly on the wall of the alveolus. The stroma composed of connective tissues frequently contain also smooth, muscular fibres."¹

¹ Cornil and Ranvier, translated by Shakespeare and Simes, p. 696.

PROGNOSIS.—This form of carcinoma uteri will bear no other than a desperate prognosis. I doubt whether it is ever discovered until the deposit has reached an extent locally that renders complete ablation impracticable. In addition to this consideration the malignant cells are disseminated, if not degenerated, in distant parts.

Nature in an infinitesimal number of cases institutes curative processes. These processes consist of extensive sloughing and a species of atrophy in the morbid growth. The growth ceases to enlarge, becomes smaller, and finally disappears. Very few men are lucky enough to witness the fortunate results of these processes. Art is powerless to cure, but may do much to palliate the suffering connected with the fatal march of carcinoma.

The duration of uterine cancer is greater in the old than in the young. In the former it may last several years; in the latter it often terminates fatally in a few months.

TREATMENT.—Taking the above history of the disease as true, it will not be necessary to say much about curative treatment. If we should find a case of cancer in which the cervix is not enlarged as high up as the junction of the cervix and vagina, I would advise amputation of the cervix and excavation of the uterine tissues as extensively as possible. The amputation and excavation may be performed by means of hooks and scissors, as in epithelioma. Taking the statistics of Freund's operation, as practised and modified by himself and others, as my guide, I am not disposed to sanction or advise the complete extirpation of the uterus for this form of cancer.