Word: betatron
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...million-volt betatron installed last summer at the University of Illinois' College of Medicine in Chicago has already proved to be a valuable instrument in the treatment of cancer. The first patient treated with it (TIME, Sept. 5) was Fordyce Hotchkiss, 72, a retired Railway Express employee who had an egg-sized cancer of the larynx. Last week Hotchkiss was thin and nervous, but his cancer was pronounced "healed...
High Hopes. If Radiologist Harvey's estimate is right, every day for the next two to three weeks more & more cancer cells in and around the patient's larynx will have their nuclei killed by the betatron's almost irresistible rays. Patients with deep-seated malignancies in other parts of the body also started treatment this week. Soon Dr. Harvey should be able to tell whether medicine's new weapon, which now costs $85,000, shows promise. If the answer is favorable, high-powered, penetrating X rays may be used in about 10% of cancer cases...
...betatron is not basically a producer of X rays, but of high-speed electrons. Since little is yet known about the effect of electrons on the human body, they are not used directly. Instead, a superbarrage of electrons is fired against a platinum target, which then gives off the X rays...
...University of Illinois' Dr. Donald W. Kerst, inventor of the betatron (TIME, Dec. 29, 1941), hopes that the doctors will learn how to cut out the middle step and use the electrons raw upon cancerous tissues...
...sister machine at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon has been used experimentally to treat eight patients since February. Directors of the Canadian project are not yet ready to report results. * Patients with cancer so widespread as to be considered hopeless will not be treated with the betatron. Also, many common types of cancer cells do not yield to X-ray treatment...