TOWARDS THE IDEAL USE OF THE "OXYGEN EFFECT" IN RADIOTHERAPY

THE RECIPROCAL OXYGFNATED ANOXIC METHOD

¹ St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, England
² Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California
³ Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, California

The following conclusions may be drawn from the mathematical results:

1. The time for a sufficient amount of oxygen to diffuse into the necrotic volume is of the order of 1 hour or less.

2. Once oxygen supply to the tissue is interrupted, normal metabolism causes the oxygen tension to drop precipitously within a few seconds, protecting the nonmalignant tissue.

3. Most of the tumor tissue is kept oxygenated by outward diffusion from the necrotic "reservoir" for a period of 60 to 90 seconds.

These 3 approaches using different types of models all indicate that the necrotic tissue of tumors might be used as reservoirs for oxygen and, further, that adjacent tumor cells could be kept oxygenated and radiosensitive for a short period while the normal tissues could be protected by hypoxia.

We recognize that our assumptions oversimplify the situation usually found in patients with tumors but suggest that there is some basis for continued efforts to devise means of testing this potentially dramatic approach.

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