Development of radiation oncology in Hong Kong up to 1985

Abstract

In 1910 the first Roentgen ray apparatus with a 16-in. spark coil and a Coolidge thermionic x-ray tube was installed at the Nethersole Alice Mitt Ling Hospital on Hong Kong Island. The apparatus was, however, only of value in the diagnosis and treatment of fractures and tuberculosis of bones. It was not until the early 1930s that Dr. T. M. Tso, a qualified radiologist with a diploma in medical radiology and electrology (DMRE) obtained in England, returned to Hong Kong and set up a private practice in diagnostic radiology. He also did some superficial radiation therapy for benign skin diseases and early skin cancers on the side using his diagnostic x-ray machine. At about the same time, a surgeon-gynecologist trained at the Middlesex Hospital in London, Dr. Arthur Woo, returned to Hong Kong to practice. He brought back with him some radium tubes which he used mainly in the treatment of carcinoma of the uterine cervix. In 1973 a new general hospital, the Queen Mary Hospital (QMH). was opened in Pokfulum to replace the old Government Civil Hospital as the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Medical Faculty. The university initially had no department of radiology or radiation oncology of its own and relied entirely on the government Medical and Health Department’s Radiological Subdepartment (RSD) staff to give lectures at first only on diagnostic radiology, and later also on radiation oncology on an honorary basis to the undergraduates in their final year of study for the bachelor of medicine (M.B.) and bachelor of surgery (B.S.) degrees. The name subdepartment was used because it was only a unit of the Medical and Health Department (MHD) of the government of Hong Kong. During 19291950, the RSD was in the charge of Dr. F. J. Farr, a radiologist qualified in England with DMRE. He was the first government specialist appointed in the MM of Hong Kong. All other doctors appointed in his period were designated medical officers (MO), whether they did internal medicine, paediatrics, surgery, gynecology. obstetrics, or anesthesia. Dr. Farr was the first honorary lecturer appointed by HKU. He had with him a team of British radiodiagnostic technologists (radiographers). The first deep xray machine, a 400 Kvp Maxima, manufactured by General Electric (GE) in the United States for external irradiation treatment of cancer. was installed at the QMH in 1938 and commissioned for use in 1939. The installation was by a GE engineer, Raymond Huang, with the help of the RSD electrical engineer. B. Y. Hon. The testing for radiation output and safety was carried out by Dr. Farr himself. In fact, he personally operated the machine when treating his patients, as he had no therapy radiographers with him at the time. In December 1941, Hong Kong was attacked and taken by the Japanese Imperial Army on Christmas Day. Dr. Farr and his superintendent radiographer. Jack Skinner, were taken prisoners and spent 3 years and 8 months in a camp for prisoners of war in Hong Kong. When released at the end of the Pacific War, they immediately returned to QMH and recommissioned the RSD there. Dr. Farr was very resourceful. He designed and made a mass miniature chest x-ray machine for mass screening of people for pulmonary tuberculosis, which was the number one public health enemy in Hong Kong in those days. He retired in March 1950 and was succeeded by Dr. John H. C. Ho, who graduated from The University of Hong Kong in 7 940 and volunteered to join the Chinese Army in China during the Pacific War about 1 year before the war spread to Hong Kong. After the war he returned to Hong Kong. and on New Year’s Eve, 1945, was appointed in charge of the partially bombed-out Laichikok Infectious Disease Hospital to care for patients with five types of infectious disease: cholera, small pox, cerebrospinal meningitis, typhoid. and diphtheria. For 6 months he was the only doctor in the hospital, which initially had SO beds but later increased to