Medicine: Aftermath of X Rays

Medical men have been aware for half a century that X rays can be destructive to human tissue. Overdosage of X rays for benign purposes can have malignant consequences. Example: careless treatment may cure acne, but cause skin cancer. Despite this established knowledge, X rays are still being incautiously used as cure-alls.

In the New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Bradford Cannon, Judson G. Randolph and Joseph E. Murray of Boston report that "patients continue to appear with permanent tissue destruction that has resulted from relatively recent radiation treatment of acne, plantar wart, eczema [and] superfluous hair." Examining 165 such cases from their personal files and the records of Massachusetts General Hospital, the doctors starkly document the dangers of unnecessary exposure to irradiation. Items:

¶ Nearly half the patients suffered from persistent painful ulceration.

¶ Cancer appeared in 36—or 22%—of the cases.

¶ Of the ten patients who had been treated for acne, nine developed skin cancer.

"This appears to be an increasing problem," warn the doctors, "since twice the number were observed at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the decade 1948 to 1957 as in the preceding decade." But the worst may be yet to come. No one knows how many healthy people with histories of such treatment may later develop malignancies. The interval for the appearance of cancer after treatment ranged in the study from five to 55 years.