The Therapeutic Use of Radioactive Elements in Malignancy

DURING the past year there have been numerous allusions to the role to be played in medicine by the developments in atomic fission. The uninitiated reader might infer that such applications are something solely to be looked for in the future, contingent on a considerable amount of developmental re-search. There is no need to argue the need for fundamental investigation in this field. The need will always exist regardless of our progress. How-ever, for the better part of 10 years, methods and tools of nuclear physics have been applied to medicine. In general, this application has been in two directions. First, isotopes offer much promise in solving the mysteries of metabolic processes in the animal and human body. Second, the artificially produced radioactive isotopes have opened up such broad horizons in the treatment of malignant disease that they will ultimately in all likelihood far surpass x-ray and radium together in therapy. The metabolic use of isotopes and their diagnostic applications embrace such wide fields in physiology, biochemistry, medicine, surgery and biology