Re: X-rays [& sealed radium sources] for medical therapy

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/4/99 7:52:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, pgcrane@erols.com
writes:

<<  I believe that it was not until the early 70's, with the
 national publicity given to the Michael Reese outreach program, that
 some of these medical uses of x-ray stopped.
      Something that may deserve to be studied is whether the Public
 Health Service and the Atomic Energy Commission, which in those years
 was supporting extensive research on the medical effects of radiation, 
 did all they could and should have to make the medical community aware
 of the hazards to patients.  Given all that was known by the mid- to
 late 1950's about the risk of thyroid cancer in young adults exposed to
 head and neck radiation in childhood, it is surprising that treatments
 of this kind continued as long as they did. >>

In addition to x-ray use for acne, ringworm, thymus, and enlarged tonsils &
adenoids, sealed radium sources were used to treat enlarged tonsils and
adenoids in children well into the 1970s. Monel encapsulated [0.3 mm
filtering] 50 mg Ra-226 sources were used to treat an estimated 500,000 to 2.5
million children from 1945 to 1961 alone with Nasal Radium Irradiation [NRI]-
[See Mellinger-Birdsong, Estimates of numbers of civilians treated with
nasopharyngeal radium irradiation in the US, Otolaryngology, Head & Neck
Surgery, Nov. 1996, Vol. 115, No, 5, pp 429-432]. This paper from the CDC
assumed NRI ended in 1961. An average course of treatment consisted of three
12 minute bilateral irradiations using these sealed radium sources, which were
inserted through the nose and positioned at the opening of the eustachian
tube. Contact doses to the nasopharynx averaged an estimated 2,000 rad [20
Gy], sufficient to shrink adenoid lymphoid tissue.

The Radium Experiment Assessment Project presently has a database with about
1,300 individuals who received NRI treatment. Over 100 of these callers were
treated in the 1970s in Maryland due to NRI having been developed at Johns
Hopkins and it being so popular with local physicians either trained at Johns
Hopkins or influenced by their long-standing support of the practice.

For more information about NRI see the web site address below.

Regards,

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860

Phone/FAX: (401) 727-4947  E-mail: radproject@usa.net
            Web address: http://www.delphi.com/carsreap


The Radium Experiment Assessment Project is a project 
of the Center for Atomic Radiation Studies, Inc., a not-for-profit 501(c)(3)
organization.
 Contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law

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