Million-Volt X-Ray Machine Replaces Former Cancer-Killer at Huntington

Greater efficiency in the treatment of cancer has been made possible by the new million-volt X-Ray machine recently installed at the Collis P. Huntington Hospital of the University

Believed to be the most powerful medical tool ever built, the machine was given to the clinic by the Godfrey M. Hyams Trust, was constructed and recently set up by research scientists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So great is the output of radiation that only one-half its rated current capacity is being used.

"The average daily treatment takes only five minutes," said officials," and this time could be reduced to two minutes if desired. The great quantity and penetrating power of these rays permits the administration of much larger doses to deep-seated tumors than has hitherto been possible with lower voltage X-Rays or with radium."

Noting that today the radiation treatment of malignant disease is largely carried out by the 200,000 volt apparatus, the Huntington hospital staff declared that it has become apparent to many radiologists that even shorter wave lengths, produced by higher voltages, are highly desirable in the treatment of cancer.

"Radium would offer an ideal source for the external application of short, penetrating rays, but even when several grams of the element are available, the intensity of radiation is so small that the distance between the patient and the applicator can not, with economy, be made sufficiently great to deliver an adequate does to a deep-seated tumor.

"For a number of years physicists and engineers have been working on the problem of providing a source of very high voltage X-Rays which would approximate in wave length the gamma rays of radium, and which could be produced in intensities equaling the output of several hundred grams of this element."

Those cases presenting tumors which are known to be radio-sensitive and in which the disease is not too widespread may be expected to show early improvement from Roentgen rays which have so great a potential.