ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To identify the earliest practitioners of prostate brachytherapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Review of contemporary literature. RESULTS: Radiotherapy has been used for benign prostatic ailments as early as 1902. Prostate cancer was first treated by teletherapy in 1904. Several urologists, in Paris and Vienna, applied intracavitary radium for prostate disease in 1908-1909. We present evidence that Henri Minet was the first to perform prostate brachytherapy, as early as 1908. CONCLUSION: Brachytherapy has been used to treat prostate cancer for more than a century.
Subject(s)
Brachytherapy/history , Prostatic Neoplasms/history , Prostatic Neoplasms/radiotherapy , Radiation Oncology/history , Europe , History, 20th Century , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Exploration of Howard Atwood Kelly's contributions to gynecologic brachytherapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Review of contemporary journals, texts, newspaper accounts, and the memoirs of Kelly's associates. Information from unpublished material, including Kelly's handwritten notes and diaries, was culled from the Alan Mason Chesney Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. RESULTS: Despite European reports of radium's efficacy, gynecologists on both sides of the Atlantic resisted its adoption. The endorsement of radium therapy by America's foremost gynecologist, Howard Kelly, was instrumental in its acceptance. His consummate skill as clinician, investigator, publicist, and entrepreneur established brachytherapy as the primary treatment modality for carcinoma of the cervix and vagina. The technique he pioneered in the second decade of the 20th century, a combination of brachytherapy and megavoltage-equivalent teletherapy, presaged modern practice. CONCLUSION: Principles for the management of female genital neoplasia, outlined by Howard Kelly nine decades ago, remain relevant today.
Subject(s)
Brachytherapy/history , Genital Neoplasms, Female/history , Genital Neoplasms, Female/radiotherapy , Gynecology/history , Physicians/history , Female , History, 20th Century , Humans , United StatesABSTRACT
Intracavitary treatment of gynecologic cancers has been the anchor of brachytherapy, and perhaps the greatest success of radiotherapy, for over a century. The woman who first performed the procedure was neither a surgeon nor radiologist, but an electrotherapeutist who began her career as an alienist. She pursued a prolific academic career despite being disabled by a disease that is no longer recognized. The fascinating life of Margaret Cleaves, the initiator of gynecologic brachytherapy, is recounted.
