FOR MANY years the method described herein of treating superficial carcinoma of the skin has been used by us satisfactorily, and we think that it is worthy of consideration. We shall refer to it as the short intensive treatment in distinction from the long, low intensity method of interstitial radium therapy. Before describing the short intensive method and discussing its results, we shall discuss briefly the long treatment.
LONG LOW INTENSITY TREATMENT
In 1929 Cade1 reported on the advantages of using a small amount of radium, over a long time (168 hours), with a filter of 0.5 mm. of platinum (or more), using gamma rays. He stressed the fact that such a technic had a selective effect; that is, it killed the cancer cell and did not injure normal tissue enough to leave objectionable sequelae. From the time of his reports interstitial radium therapy was gradually standardized to the use of filtration of 0.5 mm. of