An investigation into the effects of radium upon carcinoma of the breast

✍ Scribed by J. Paterson Ross

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1939
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 822 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.18002710603

✦ Synopsis

INVESTIGATION

THE radium treatment of operable carcinoma of the breast by the method which has since become known as the '' Keynes technique " was started in the Surgical Professorial Unit at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1924. This was done only after a preliminary trial of the method in treating cases of inoperable or recurrent carcinoma had yielded results which were so encouraging that Professor George Gask and Mr. Geoffrey Keynes were led to believe that their patients were running no additional risk by submitting to radium treatment instead of radical mastectomy. Our subsequent experience has amply justified their faith.

It was one of the first duties of the newly established Follow-up Department at St. Bartholomew's to keep in touch with all patients suffering from carcinoma of the breast, whether treated by radium or mastectomy, and after a few years it became apparent that the percentage survival rates of the two groups were almost identical. Lest the surgery at St. Bartholomew's be criticized as a standard of