RE: Question re. 1940's medical procedure

["Weiner, Ruth" <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

My own mother (born in 1900) had adjuvant radiation therapy for breast
cancer in 1925, after a radical mastectomy.  She also had treatments in the
late 1940's after surgery for a recurrence.  So radiation therapy certainly
dates from the 1920s.

Your sister may have been treated for hyperthyroidism, and shrinking the
thyroid to normal size would not have required her to take additional
thyroid.  On the other hand, a number of growths were treated with radiation
at a time when (a) less was known about the long-term effects and (b)
surgical techniques, especially microsurgery, were not as varied and well
developed as they are now.

Clearly only my own opinion.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Sandia National Laboratories 
MS 0718, POB 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov


-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth M. Brackett [mailto:brackett@bright.net]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 3:33 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Question re. 1940's medical procedure


Hello to all-

My mother was telling me about a medical procedure she had when she was 7
or 8, sometime in the mid-'40s (I guess I'm giving away her age - good
thing she's not a subscriber!) that she said she had always wondered about.
 She had a lump that was growing under her chin and, after surgical
removal, was given "therapy" which consisted of placing her under a large
piece of equipment with her head hanging back off the end of the table.
She was left alone in the room for a few minutes.  It sounds like it was
some kind of radiation therapy because the machine never touched her.  She
said the only thing she was told was that she had swollen glands (an
apocryphal story from a sister who would have been only 8 or 9 at the time)
and none of her other living relatives remember much about it.  Was
radiation used for cancer that long ago, and if not, is there something
else it would have been used for?  It wasn't her thyroid because she
doesn't take any hormone replacements for loss of thyroid function (plus
the scar seems a bit high for that).

Thanks for your help.

Liz Brackett


******************************
  Elizabeth M. Brackett, CHP 
     Sr. Health Physicist     
     MJW Corporation, Inc.       
       (330) 644-3757        
  mailto:brackett@bright.net 
******************************
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