The Fifth Report of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1909. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE SURGICAL TREATMENT OF X-RAY CARCINOMA AND OTHER SEVERE X-RAY LESIONS, BASED UPON AN ANALYSIS OF FORTY-SEVEN CASES.* C. A. Porter, M.D. {Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Surgeon to the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.) In the Annals of Surgery for November, 1907, I published the account of two cases of severe X-ray lesions; one of possible sarcoma of the finger, the other of an X-ray operator who, since 1896, in addition to the severer forms of dermatitis and ulceration, had developed, between 1902 and 1907, numerous carcinomata, requiring many operations, amputations, excisions, and skin graftings. At the time, I was able to gather the records of ten other cases making, with my own, eleven undoubted X-ray cancers, of which six had been fatal. Since that time occasional reports of cases have appeared, and three notable papers by E. Schumann 1 in the Beitrage fur Klinische Chirurgie, 1907, LXXXIV., Heft 3, page 355; by Karl Lindenborn,2 in the same journal, 1908, LXXXIX., Heft 2, page 385; and by Dr. Cecil Rowntree3 of London in the Archives of the Middlesex Hospital, XIII., July, 1908. In all of these papers new cases have been presented, and the etiological relation between X-ray lesions and carcinoma, possibly also sarcoma, has been thoroughly discussed and, in the case of the former at least, definitely proved. In the German literature especially, the subsequent development of cancer upon lupus tissue treated with X-rays has aroused considerable interest; though Steinhans has collected eighty-three cases of carcinoma following lupus, without X-ray treatment, it seems, after a careful perusal of the histories, at least probable that the X-ray had a definite influence upon the subsequent development of the cancer. T...