Evidence for a Tumoricidal Dose Level in the Radiotherapy of Hodgkin's Disease¹

A review of the available evidence indicates that Hodgkin's disease tends to recur in a treated field with a frequency which is inversely related to dose and approaches zero at a dose of approximately 4000 rads, delivered at the rate of about 1000 rads/week. Such doses make the use of megavoltage X-ray beams mandatory to avoid severe skin reactions, but are otherwise well tolerated by the normal tissues. The inverse relationship of recurrence rate to radiation dose has important implications for the radiotherapy of Hodgkin's disease, which are supported by the limited data thus far available relating radiation dose to long term survival in Hodgkin's disease.