Further Experience as to the Value of Pre-operative Irradiation with X-rays or Radium and with Pre- and Post-Biopsy Irradiation while Submitting the Sections to a Number of Experienced Surgical Pathologists

Abstract

THE idea of pre-operative or pre-biopsy irradiation is not mine alone. It has been practised by others in a number of the well-known cancer clinics throughout the civilized world. Nevertheless, post-operative and post-biopsy irradiation is the rule, while, from my experience, it should be the exception. In the “Annals of Surgery” for November, 1932, was published my article read by title before the American Surgical Association in May of that year. The full title was: When should Irradiation with Radium or X-rays Precede Operation, or be Employed without It? In this article I quoted the work of Keynes, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in London, published in the “British Journal of Surgery” for February, 1932. I was much impressed not only by his contribution, but by my visit to his clinic in the previous May. His method of treating inoperable cancer of the breast by interstitial radium salt needles, as illustrated in Figure 1 of my article, was practised quite commonly by a smaller group of surgeons in Lon...