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CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 5, 20-28, Copyright © 1955 by American Cancer Society

Concepts of Radical Irradiation Therapy

¹ The Department of Radiology, New York University College of Medicine, and the Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York, New York.

1. Radical irradiation entails the administration to the cancer of large doses of irradiation that may jeopardize adjacent normal tissues. This irradiation injury is acceptable within certain bounds as a calculated risk in order to arrest cancers that are otherwise incurable.

2. It is essential to know the tolerance doses of all normal tissues and the degree of injury produced by doses beyond tolerance. Two hundred and fifty kilovolt roentgen rays tend to injure the superficial structures. Supervoltage radiation tends to injure deeper structures.

3. Radical irradiation therapy is designed not as a routine technique but for special situations, such as radioresistant tumors whose lethal dose exceeds the tolerance dose of adjacent normal tissues, atypically resistant tumors that fail to respond to optimum dosage, and advanced, extensive cancer.

4. There are several techniques for radical irradiation therapy. Supervoltage rotation therapy is the ideal modality. It provides a large tumor dose with minimal irradiation of all normal tissues.