Treatment of Pleural and Peritoneal Effusion with Intracavitary Colloidal Radiogold (Au 198)

Therapy for recurrent effusions of the pleural and peritoneal cavities of patients with local or metastatic malignant processes is an important and often difficult clinical problem. Such effusions occur in at least 29%1of such patients, and, if recurrent and large, they can be the most significant factor in their management. Repeated withdrawals of abdominal and pleural fluid are not only trying to the patient but result in depletion of electrolytes and proteins. The intracavitary instillation of radioactive colloidal gold (Au198) is frequently of distinct benefit in slowing down or halting the accumulation of fluid, even though such therapy is not curative and does not abolish the malignant process. An artificially induced radioactive isotope in colloid form was administered for therapeutic purposes for the first time in 1944, in Vanderbilt University Hospital. This was molecular iodine colloid made with cyclotron-produced I130and prepared by Paul F. Hahn.