Abstract
A NOTE in The Times of August 24 states that Prof. Ernest Lawrence, of the University of California, reports further progress in the production of artificial radioactivity. By subjecting ordinary salt to high-voltage X-rays, he claims to have produced in his laboratory minute amounts of radio-sodium, whicli emits radiation only of the y-type, and has a half-lifo period of only about 15 hours as compared with the 1700 years of radium, while tho suggestion is made that great therapeutic possibilities are thus opened up. The high reputation of Prof. Lawrence leaves UH in no doubt as to the validity of his experimental claim; but it seems all the more necessary to suspend judgment about therapeutic possibilities until a vast amount of experimental biological work has been carried out. It was suggested that it might be possible to inject the radio-sodiurn into the tissues, apparently with the view of obtaining its local action upon malignant growths. How the localisation is to be effected will, we think, bo rather a problem. A further point is that the short half-life period is not necessarily by any means an advantage from the therapeutic point of view. One of the certain facts which have resulted from the scientific study of radiation therapy is that uniform and carefully adjusted dosage is essential to success. The new productradio-sodiumproduces a form of radiation which is rapidly diminishing in amount; constancy of radiation, therefore, cannot be expected. It is certainly by no means the case that an initial heavy dose of radiation which rapidly decreases will have the samo biological effect as the same total dose provided by a smaller constant source acting for a longer time. From the physico-chemical point of view, Prof. Lawrence's work is of the deepest interest,” but to mention therapeutic possibilities at this early stage seems to us decidedly premature.
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Artificial Radioactivity and Therapeutics. Nature 136, 329–330 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136329c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136329c0