Radiotherapy Techniques

Abstract

Shortly after the discovery of radium in 1895, the event that marks the beginning of radiotherapy, malignant disease in the pelvis was treated with the new rays. Radium in a powder form was initially encapsulated in glass tubes. In that form it was placed in the uterus and vagina of patients with inoperable advanced malignant disease of the cervix. Within a decade, enthusiastic reports of high-grade palliation and long-term patient survival provoked great interest and radium became much more widely available. The early pioneers learnt to seal it into metal tubes or needles which filtered out unwanted poor quality radiation. They applied it safely to cavities and pushed it directly into the base of epithelial tumours. In this early form, radium came to be used in vesical, rectal, anal, urethral and even parametrial disease. Shortly after the recognition of the clinical efficacy came a realisation of the potentially harmful effects on the patients’ normal tissues so that safe dosage systems for applying treatment to patients were formulated. Satisfactory radium systems were developed in the bigger European centres in Paris and Stockholm and modified into a very satisfactory internationally usable form in Manchester (Tod 1947).