X-ray Therapy in the Treatment of Acute Pneumonia

Abstract

THE presentation by Eugene V. Powell, M.D., of Temple, Texas, of his paper entitled “Roentgen Rays in the Treatment of Acute Pneumonia” at the Fifth International Congress of Radiology, in Chicago, September, 1937, brought to our attention a use for x-ray therapy which, up to that time, had been almost entirely neglected. Subsequent publications by this author should be reviewed by those interested in the pneumonia problem (1,2). This neglect of x-ray therapy in such a definitely acute infectious condition as pneumonia seems strange, in retrospect, to radiologists and to other physicians who may be familiar with the value of x-ray therapy in acute infections when we think of the advances in the use of x-ray therapy in the past 35 years. The use of x-ray therapy in the treatment of boils, carbuncles, erysipelas, cellulitis, gas infection, otitis, mastoiditis, breast abscess, adenitis, parotitis, phlegmon, onychia and paronychia, gonorrheal arthritis, and other infectious conditions may be said to have gone far beyond the experimental stage. The report here offered is chiefly a summary of 138 cases of pneumonia which passed through the X-ray Department of the Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital during one year, Oct. 1, 1937, to Sept. 30, 1938, inclusive, together with other material from the hospital records and other sources. The writer attempts to draw conclusions from those cases that were radiographed and/or treated in the X-ray Department of the hospital during the twelve-month period that x-ray therapy was used in the treatment of acute pneumonia. For the purposes of this paper, only those pneumonia cases that were treated and/or radiographed are analyzed extensively, but there were others that were not radiographed, for one reason or another. These also are included in several of the tables, in order to be as accurate as possible and to secure a control group. To quote from a personal letter from Alexander D. Langmuir, M.D., Medical Consultant of the Bureau of Pneumonia Control, of the Department of Health of the State of New York, under date of Dec. 15, 1938: “Reliable statistics to make fair comparisons are very difficult to obtain, because of the tremendous number of variables which are always operating.” It is with full cognizance of the truth of this statement that this report is offered. It is hoped that the material herein contained will not engender, in those who may happen to have it come to their attention, that unwarranted enthusiasm which too often is accorded a somewhat new development in medical fields. Also, it should not be passed over too lightly, as being overrated, by those who are “sold” on other methods of treatment. Until sufficient data by others working on the subject may be presented to the medical profession, confirming or negating the apparent results secured to date, it would seem to us that there is a definite field for this use of x-ray therapy.