50 years of radiation research: medicine

The advances brought about by research in radiation medicine over the past 50 years are presented. The era began with the atomic explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the establishment of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission to understand what damage was caused by exposure of a large population to radiation. A better understanding of the effects of whole-body exposure led to the development of whole-body radiation treatment techniques and to bone marrow transplantation in the treatment of leukemias. The field of diagnostic imaging was revolutionized by a series of inventions that included angiography, mammography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and ultrasound imaging. The field of nuclear medicine came of age through new man-made radionuclides and the invention of scanning and imaging techniques including positron emission tomography. Radiotherapy, a minor sideline of radiology, developed into radiation oncology, an extremely important component of modern cancer therapy. The advances in clinical radiotherapy were made possible by discoveries and inventions in physics and engineering and by insights and discoveries in radiobiology. The result of the last 50 years of progress is a very powerful set of clinical tools.