Radiotherapy of Malignant Tumours in Sweden

Abstract

I wish to express my sincerest and respectful thanks to the British Institute of Radiology and the Electro-Therapeutics Section of the Royal Society of Medicine for conferring upon me the great honour of asking me to deliver this year's Mackenzie Davidson Memorial Lecture. As the subject for my lecture I have selected “Radiotherapy of Malignant Tumours in Sweden.” Through their capacity to influence various morbid processes, Röntgen and radium rays have found extensive use in therapy. What more than anything else has attracted public interest in radiotherapy is, however, the action of radium and Röntgen rays upon malignant tumours. The discovery made at the beginning of the century to the effect that Röntgen light is capable of bringing about a healing process in certain tumours, instilled great hopes. But it was soon found that the new agent was not easy to handle. It could not bring any cheap victories. During the first two decades radiotherapy in cancer caused in most places in the world disappointment. General despair of the value of radiotherapy almost took possession of both medical men and the general public. Thus a well-known Scandinavian surgeon, not many years ago, characterised the scope of radiotherapy with the words: “Radium is an excellent cure for warts, but it is expensive.” In many quarters doubts were expressed quite recently that a malignant tumour could be permanently cured by radiotherapy, and it was considered under all circumstances as an error to use radiotherapy for operable cancer.