THE HISTOPATHOLOGY OF RADIATION LESIONS

Abstract

This simple informative review, citing only 35 references, deals first with the therapeutic types of radiation,[long dash]electro-magnetic, corpuscular (including the recently used radioactive isotopes), and neutronic. By way of introduction, it tells briefly how these radiation methods can be equated with respect to biological effect, are not specific in their results, are never directly stimulating but only destructive, fail to reach all the cells of a tissue, always reach some cells of adjacent tissues; how cells differ from one another in susceptibility to damage by irradiation, and differ within themselves from one stage of a life history or a mitosis to another. Then it describes for normal tissues the apparent and real latent periods ''of injury, the types of visible change (mitotic, cytoplasmic, functional, vascular, intracellular); the order of sensitivity of different cells, with special mention of the germ plasm; the role of infection and trauma in radiation damage. It discusses radiation injury as a cause of neoplasms. Finally it gives separate descriptions of the radiation changes in examples of the radio-sensitive, the radio-responsive, and the radio-resistant tumor; and comments on curability in relation to radio-sensitivity.