ON TECHNICAL METHODS IN RADIUM THERAPY 



S. RUSS, C.B.E., D.Sc. 



Professor of Physics in the University of London ; 



Physicist to the Middlesex Hospital 



Introduction 



TECHNIQUE in the therapeutic use of radium has been 

 developed as a result of the changing outlook of the ther- 

 apist. Surgeons were quick to employ radium when proper 

 appliances had been devised for containing and manipulating 

 this substance, but the tendency now is towards a diminishing 

 use of radium by surgeons for implantation into the tissues. 

 Dermatologists were no less ready to treat lesions of the skin 

 with preparations of radium that could easily be applied to the 

 surface of the body. By suitable choice of metal enclosure, the 

 therapist could carry out this kind of work with beta-plus-gamma 

 or pure gamma radiation. This technique survives, but it is 

 unusual to use beta-ray sources except for lesions which are 

 essentially skin lesions. Gynecologists have been perhaps the 

 most outstandingly successful of radium therapists, because their 

 work has led to far less actual surgery in uterine cancer, and 

 the miseries of uterine hemorrhage promise to be a thing of 

 the past. 



The advances in technique fall into natural groupings which 

 have been determined in one of two ways, e.g., a new technique 

 may be developed as the result of a new medical point of view, 

 for instance, the substitution of surface for interstitial applica- 

 tions largely arose from the view that damage to the tissues 

 was to be avoided at all cost ; or again, a new technique was 

 developed as a result of the ingenuity of physicists in preparing 

 radon sources which can sometimes be used in preference to 



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