[Hard x-ray therapy with special reference to postoperative irradiation of breast carcinoma]

Five-year-experiences have shown that a considerably intensified tolerance of the skin and an absorption equability of tissues and bones and muscles are obtained with the hard ray roentgen irradiator, RT 305, for half-value depths from 20 mm to 70 mm H-2O and half-value thickness to about 7 mm Cu. By means of a rod anode tube of 300 kV with a super-normal filtration to 3.5 mm Pb, a hard and nearly monochromatic radiation, which already possesses the above mentioned advantages of the ultra-hard ray therapy with an effective energy about 0.2 MeV, appears. The application of this hard ray therapy is given preferably for disease foci in the environment of bone tissues, i.e. in the head and throat, the vertebral column, the osseous pelvic ring and the extremities and as the conventional roentgen therapy ist not able to give it. The hard ray therapy seems to be particularly adapted for the postoperative irradiation of the cancer of the breast with the ribs lying in the region of the irradiation fields, with the sternum and the bones of the shoulder girdle. With regard to these radiotherapeutic possibilities, corresponding cases are demonstrated.