Brachytherapy is a form of radiation therapy where a sealed radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment. Brachy is Greek for short. Brachytherapy is commonly used as an effective treatment for cervical, prostate, breast, esophageal and skin cancer and can also be used to treat tumours in many other body sites. Treatment results have demonstrated that the cancer-cure rates of brachytherapy are either comparable to surgery and external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or are improved when used in combination with these techniques. Brachytherapy can be used alone or in combination with other therapies such as surgery, EBRT and chemotherapy.
Sir William Henry Bragg was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son Lawrence Bragg – the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics: "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays". The mineral Braggite is named after him and his son. He was knighted in 1920.
Edward Donnall "Don" Thomas was an American physician, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, and director emeritus of the clinical research division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 1990 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Joseph E. Murray for the development of cell and organ transplantation. Thomas and his wife and research partner Dottie Thomas developed bone marrow transplantation as a treatment for leukemia.
James Walter Douglas was a British North America born mining engineer and businessman who introduced a number of metallurgical innovations in copper mining and amassed a fortune through the copper mining industry of Bisbee, Arizona Territory and Sonora before and after the turn of the 20th century.
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing or vibrational medicine being used as synonymous or alternative names. In most cases there is no empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify the practice as hands-on, hands-off, and distant where the patient and healer are in different locations. Many schools of energy healing exist using many names: for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or Qigong.
Radiobiology is a field of clinical and basic medical sciences that involves the study of the effects of ionizing radiation on living things, in particular health effects of radiation. Ionizing radiation is generally harmful and potentially lethal to living things but can have health benefits in radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer and thyrotoxicosis. Its most common impact is the induction of cancer with a latent period of years or decades after exposure. High doses can cause visually dramatic radiation burns, and/or rapid fatality through acute radiation syndrome. Controlled doses are used for medical imaging and radiotherapy.
Radionics—also called electromagnetic therapy (EMT) and the Abrams method—is a form of alternative medicine that claims that disease can be diagnosed and treated by applying electromagnetic radiation (EMR), such as radio waves, to the body from an electrically powered device. It is similar to magnet therapy, which also applies EMR to the body but uses a magnet that generates a static electromagnetic field.
Maurice Lenz was a pioneer in the field of radiation therapy. Born in Kovno, Russian Empire, Lenz studied at New York University and Bellevue Medical College, and received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1913. He was a professor of radiation oncology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, a past president of the American Radium Society and held many other clinical and administrative roles throughout a long career in medicine.
Saul Hertz, M.D. was an American physician who devised the medical uses of radioactive iodine. Hertz pioneered the first targeted cancer therapies. Hertz is called the father of the field of theranostics, combining diagnostic imaging with therapy in a single or paired chemical substance(s).
The history of radiation therapy or radiotherapy can be traced back to experiments made soon after the discovery of X-rays (1895), when it was shown that exposure to radiation produced cutaneous burns. Influenced by electrotherapy and escharotics—the medical application of caustic substances—doctors began using radiation to treat growths and lesions produced by diseases such as lupus, basal cell carcinoma, and epithelioma. Radiation was generally believed to have bactericidal properties, so when radium was discovered, in addition to treatments similar to those used with x-rays, it was also used as an additive to medical treatments for diseases such as tuberculosis where there were resistant bacilli.
Edith Smaw Quimby was an American medical researcher and physicist, best known as one of the founders of nuclear medicine. Her work involved developing diagnostic and therapeutic applications of X-rays. One of her main concerns was protecting both those handling the radioactive material and making sure that those being treated were given the lowest dose necessary.
Herbert M. Parker was an English, and American immigrant, medical physicist. He was a pioneer of medical radiation therapy and radiation safety, known for introducing the roentgen equivalent physical (rep), the forerunner of the gray and the rad, and also the roentgen equivalent biological (reb), the forerunner of the rem and the sievert.
Gioacchino Failla was an Italian-born American physicist. A pioneer in both biophysics and radiobiology, he was particularly noted for his work on the role of radiation as a cause of cancer and genetic mutation. He was born in Castelbuono in the Province of Palermo and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1906. After his retirement from Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research in 1960, he was appointed Senior Scientist Emeritus in the Radiological Physics Division of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. He was killed in a car accident near the laboratory at the age of 70.
Leonidas D. Marinelli was the American radiological physicist who is best known for founding the field of Human Radiobiology and developing the Marinelli Beaker.
Henry Harrington Janeway was an American physician and pioneer of radiation therapy.
James Ralston Kennedy "RP" Paterson, CBE, MC, MD, FRCSEd, FRCR, DMRE (Cantab) was a radiologist and oncologist in Scotland. Along with Herbert Parker, pioneered the development of the Paterson-Parker rules for the Radium Dosage System also known as the Manchester system.
Eleanor D. Montague was an American radiologist and educator who established breast-conserving therapy in the United States and improved radiation therapy techniques. She became a member of the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Dawson Fyers Duckworth Turner, FRSE, FRCPE (1857–1928) was a British pioneer of radiology and patron of the arts, who died of radiation related cancer.
Henri Coutard was a French radiation therapist. He is known for his studies of radiation therapy for the treatment of laryngeal cancer and the development of the "protracted-fractional method" of radiation dosing.
Robley Dunglison Evans was an American nuclear physicist and pioneer of nuclear medicine. He was the president of the Health Physics Society in 1972–1973.
