Introduction
“Radiotherapy (radio-oncology), surgery and chemotherapy are the three pillars of successful cancer treatment. Radiotherapy, alone or with surgery, is responsible for nearly half of all cured cancer patients.” This statement was made by the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” (German Association on Scientific Research) in 1980 and was confirmed by the Alberta Cancer Registry, located in Canada, in 1989.
It has been a long road from the first experiments with newly discovered X-rays in 1895 to the efficacy of radiological cancer treatment today. Bernier et al. (2004) divide the development into four periods and schools: the German school, from 1900 to 1920; the French school, from 1920 to 1940; the British school, from 1940 to 1960; and the United States and European school, from 1970 to present.
Beginnings: 1895–1920
Shortly after the discovery of the “Roentgenstrahlen” (X-rays) by W.C. Röntgen in 1895 (Case 1958), the first observations on the therapeutic effects of this...
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Heilmann, HP. (2013). History of Radiation Oncology. In: Brady, L.W., Yaeger, T.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Radiation Oncology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85516-3_441
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