The Nation - News from Dec. 1, 1986

Researchers have developed a way to detect tumors that do not appear on X-rays, a government scientist reported. Dr. Steven Larson, head of the nuclear medicine division at the National Institutes of Health, told a conference of radiologists in Chicago that radioactive antibodies produced from mouse blood cells helped locate tumors in 16 patients treated between 1982 and 1986. The technique, which uses nuclear medicine devices called gamma cameras, has proved successful in locating skin and blood cancers and will soon be tested as a treatment for colon cancer.