Radium Treatment of Malignant Tumors
Professor Regaud, the eminent radiologist, of Paris, recently delivered an address before the Berliner medizinische Gesellschaft, at the invitation of that society and the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Krebsbekämpfung, in which he recounted his experiences with radium treatment of malignant tumors.There are tumors that are not suited to radiologic treatment, such as gastric and rectal cancers, which, therefore, like operable cancers of the breast, are turned over to the surgeon. In contrast to these, carcinomas of the skin and of the nasal and buccal cavities, for example, react very favorably to radium therapy, which is sometimes superior to surgery in operable tumors. The effect of radium treatment consists in a direct selective destruction of the cancer cells. These must therefore be more sensitive to radium than are the surrounding normal tissues. Also, sufficient penetration must be attained at irradiation, and the surrounding tissues must be