Radiation Therapy of Prostate Cancer at Stanford University: An Experience of 36 Years

Abstract

Radiotherapy for prostatic cancer was started in 1910 by Paschkis and Tittinger in Austria who used a radium source attached to a cysto-scope. At about the same time Pasteau in France irradiated the prostate with a radium source carried within a urethral catheter. These techniques were brought to the U.S. between 1915 and 1920 by Hugh Young at Johns Hopkins, Barringer at Memorial Hospital in New York and Bumpus at the Mayo Clinic. Our interest at Stanford was stimulated most directly by the successful reports of Rubin Flocks who, in the early 1950s, injected radioactive colloidal gold (¹⁹²Au) solutions directly into the prostate and regional lymph nodes. By then, it had been generally conceded that androgen deprivation was palliative, even though initially Huggins had thought it would be curative. Radical prostatectomy, both perineal and retropubic, while well developed, was not widely used for two significant reasons.