Milestone-Proposal talk:COBALT-60 RADIATION CANCER TREATMENT UNIT

Advocates’ Checklist

1. Is proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? YES
2. If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name? N/A
3. Was proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology? YES
4. Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? NO
5. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology? YES
6. Is proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the advocate. If the advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones. YES
7. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent? YES
8. Is proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public? YES
9. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements? Is the address complete? Are the GPS coordinates correct and in decimal format? YES
10. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications? YES
11. Scientific and technical units correct? (e.g. km, mm, hertz, etc.) Are acronyms correct and properly upperercased or lowercased? YES
12. Date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? YES

https://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Helpful_Hints_on_Citations,_Plaque_Locations

Re: Advocates’ Checklist -- Dmichelson (talk) 21:20, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Advocate's assessment

As a former member of the TRIUMF Cyclotron Development Group, I have good awareness of the general subject matter. Cobalt-60 radiation therapy represented a tremendous advance over the x-ray and radium-based techniques previously used to irradiate cancer tumours and has been widely cited as an important Canadian achievement in the years since. It is a most suitable achievement for recognition as an IEEE Milestone.

The proposers have dramatically revised and improved their proposal based upon recommendations from me and the two reviewers. The list of references has been greatly expanded, the citation has been simplified, and the supporting text has been expanded. All references are now available from the proposal page.

The two reviewers, Ervin B. Podgorsak and L. John Schreiner, are very well suited to confirm the merits of this achievement.

Reviewer 1 -

Dr. Ervin B. Podgorsak is a medical physicist, educator, and administrator. He was born in Vienna, Austria to Slovenian parents and grew up in Slovenia where he earned his Dipl. Ing. degree in Technical Physics from the University of Ljubljana in 1968. He pursued graduate work in physics under Drs. John R. Cameron and Paul R. Moran at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, receiving his M.Sc. in Physics in 1970 and Ph.D. in Physics in 1973. He then specialized in medical and clinical physics as a Post-doctoral Fellow under Drs. Harold E. Johns and John R. Cunningham at the Ontario Cancer Institute and the University of Toronto. In 1975 he joined McGill University in Montreal, Canada and remained there until his retirement in 2010 from positions of Professor of Medical Physics, Director of Academic and Residency Programs in Medical Physics at McGill University, and Director of the Medical Physics Department at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Currently, he holds a position of Professor Emeritus at McGill University.

Author of 5 medical physics textbooks, 4 monographs, 161 peer-reviewed publications, 19 invited book chapters, 70 conference proceedings, 176 invited presentations, and 228 conference presentations, Dr. Podgorsak, in addition to his administrative and educational duties, has been involved in medical physics research, such as solid-state dosimetry, linac target design, and development of innovative cancer therapy techniques, most notably dynamic stereotactic radiosurgery. He was certified in therapeutic medical physics by the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine (CCPM) and the American Board of Medical Physics (ABMP). He is a Fellow of the CCPM, the American College of Medical Physics (ACMP), the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP), and the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP). For his educational, research and administrative activities he received several awards and honors, most notably the William D. Coolidge Gold Medal from the AAPM in 2006, Gold Medal from the COMP in 2008, and the Peter Kirkby Memorial Medal from the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) and the COMP in 2011. On February 12, 2016 he was invested as Member to the Order of Canada by the Hon. David Johnston, the Governor General of Canada.

Reviewer 2 -

Dr. L. John Schreiner has been a radiation therapy physicist since 1986 when he joined the Medical Physics Unit directed by Dr. Ervin Podgorsak at McGill University in Montreal. In 1997, after 10 years at McGill and the Montreal General Hospital, and about 2 years at the Vancouver Island Cancer Centre, he became the Chief Medical Physicist at the Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario in Kingston, Ontario. He is cross appointed as Adjunct Full Professor in the Departments of Oncology and Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy and has an appointment to the School of Computing at Queen’s University. He has been board certified by the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine (CCPM) as both a member (MCCPM) and fellow (FCCPM).

John’s research at the University of Waterloo (Ph.D., 1985) was in nuclear magnetic resonance studies of various tissue model systems under the mentorship of Prof. Mic Pintar. Over his career he combined his biophysics work in magnetic resonance relaxation measurements with his career in radiation therapy through the development of three-dimensional (3D) gel dosimetry. In 1999 he was an original organizer for what developed into 10 biannual International Conferences on Gel Dosimetry (IC3Ddose). He edited two of the ICD3Ddose conference proceedings and has been on the Scientific Organizing Committee for all 10 conferences. These meetings have been sanctioned by Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP), the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and the Commission on the Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs (CAMPEP).

From 1991 to 1993 John was the editor for the joint COMP and Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine (CCPM) Newsletter. He served on the CCPM Board from 1997 to 2004, three years of which he was CCPM President. He continues to serve regularly on CCPM examination committees and, since 2013, has been a member of COMP’s Quality Assurance and Radiation Safety Advisory Committee. In 2009 he was asked to lecture on gel dosimetry at the AAPM Summer School on Clinical Dosimetry Measurements in Radiotherapy, and in 2010 he was invited by the International Atomic Energy Agency to lecture for one week on regulatory issues for radiation safety in hospitals (Vilnius, Lithuania). He has served on the editorial committees for Medical Physics (for which he is a senior associate editor) and the Journal of Medical Physics (India). In 2013 he was invested as FCOMP, a Fellow of COMP for contributions to Canadian medical physics. In 2017 he was awarded the distinction of FAAPM, Fellowship in the American Association of Physicists in Medicine for contributions to the field. That year he was also made a University of Waterloo, Faculty of Science Alumni of Honour for University’s 60th Anniversary, in recognition of outstanding vision, professional dedication and commitment to excellence. He is currently leading an effort to establish a virtual medical physics mentoring program linking experienced medical physics mentors with mentees in low-and-medical income countries.

In his research, he and collaborators at Queen’s University has proposed new radiochromic materials for 3D dosimetry, developed less toxic dosimeters for improved polymer gel dosimeters for clinical applications, advanced open source analysis software tools for film and gel dosimetry, and developed clinical protocols for their use using optical detection methods. He is the originator of the cobalt-60 advanced radiation delivery research program in Kingston, having initiated both the dose delivery and the Co-60 computed tomography (CT) imaging research. This work is unique to Kingston.

John is particularly proud of two aspects of his career: 1) he introduced scientists across North America to the field of 3D gel dosimetry, a field in which Canada is a major player; and 2) he has supervised over 120 trainees from the undergraduate to post-doctoral/clinical resident levels, introducing them to radiation therapy medical physics. The majority of these trainees have gone on to very successful careers in the field; 5 former graduate students are Chief Physicists in various centres across the USA and Canada. They also enabled John to publish research in a number of areas (reported in ~110 peer reviewed publications). His work is currently or was recently funded through grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Ontario Research Fund Excellence Program (through OCAIRO, the Ontario Consortium of Adaptive Interventions in Radiation Oncology.)

Reviewers’ Checklist

Reviewer 1 - Ervin Podgorsak

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate? YES
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? YES
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement? YES
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

The proposers have adequately explained how Cobalt-60 radiotherapy improved upon the prior art.

Other Comments

The proposal is relevant, the document well written, and I support it with great enthusiasm and without reservation.

1. I have prepared some suggestions for changes and/or additions to text to the proposers.

[These changes and/or additions have been implemented.]

2. Throughout the text I changed “Cobalt-60 unit" to read "Cobalt-60 machine”. I remember that Dr. Harold Johns, the inventor of the cobalt unit, always referred to it as a “machine”. I think the term “machine” has a better “ring" to it than a simple “unit”, but, of course, the decision on whether or not to change the nomenclature is for the committee to make.

[This change has been implemented.]

3. I believe it would be a nice gesture if Dr. Johns, the inventor of the cobalt machine, were honoured by a sentence or two in the Abstract.

[This change has been implemented.]

4. Considering the number of words allowed in the citation, the 68-word-text proposed below looks perfect to me.

[Proposed citation]

Cobalt-60 Radiation Cancer Treatment Machine, 1951

In 1951, two teams of medical physicists, engineers, and radiation oncologists in London (Ontario) and Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) independently, yet cooperatively, designed and assembled the first treatment machines that directed gamma radiation produced by radioactive cobalt-60 onto cancerous tumours in patients. First applied at Victoria Hospital, London on 27 October 1951, this revolutionary treatment has since been used to extend the lives of millions of patients around the world.

[68 words]

Reviewer 2 - John Schreiner

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate? YES
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? YES
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement? YES
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed? The proposers have adequately described the context in which the Cobalt-60 work was conducted.

Other Comments

I've noted a few spelling errors.

[This issue has been addressed]

The text repeats the word “focused” a number of times throughout. This is loose talk that might be ok in a lay document / plaque I suspect it should not be used in an engineering context. Neither gamma rays or x-rays can be focused (at least not easily and never in a clinic). It would be better to say directed and other synonyms.

[This issue has been addressed]

Finally I attach two further documents that might be of interest in the citations. One an article from 1954 or so in Readers Digest that I found a few years back, The other a paper that some colleagues and I wrote earlier this century noting that cobalt still had use in the global fight against cancer.

[This issue has been addressed]

Please thank the proposers for putting this effort forward. Very nice.

Submission and Review Log

17 July 2023 -- advocate selected; 8 August 2023 -- proposal submitted; 28 May 2024 -- advocate recommended inclusion on the history committee agenda

Submission and Approval Log

Submitted date: 28 May 2024
History Committee approval date: 11 June 2024
Board of Directors approval date:

Original Citation Title and Text -- Administrator4 (talk) 12:29, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Cobalt-60 Radiation Cancer Treatment Unit, 1951

In 1951, two teams of engineers, scientists, and physicians, in London and Saskatoon, independently yet cooperatively designed the first cobalt-60 radiation treatment units or “cobalt bombs”. These units focussed gamma radiation directly on cancerous cells. The first use of the treatment was 27 October 1951 at Victoria Hospital, London. Decades of effective worldwide use and the thousands of lives extended have proven the dependability of these units.

Suggested New Citation, and Comments on Support Information -- Bberg (talk) 07:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

The citation should clarify where London (in particular) and Saskatoon are located. Also, the last sentence does not read smoothly. As such, I suggest the following new version at 69 words:

In 1951, two teams of engineers, scientists, and physicians in London, Ontario, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, independently yet cooperatively designed and assembled the first treatment units that focused gamma radiation produced by radioactive cobalt-60 directly onto cancerous cells. This treatment was first applied on 27 October 1951 at Victoria Hospital, London. After decades of worldwide use, the extension of the lives of thousands has proven the efficacy of this treatment.

In addition, as the "historical significance" and "What features" sections are each only a single lengthy paragraph, each should be split up into multiple paragraphs to make for much easier reading. Also, as neither the "obstacles" or "What features" sections have any cites to references, cites should be added and/or new text with citations should be added.

Also, it appears that the word "Unit" in the title should actually be "Units".

Re: Suggested New Citation, and Comments on Support Information -- Dmichelson (talk) 04:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

One of the reviewers suggested fairly major changes to the citation. We went through a few iterations. He and I are satisfied with the following:

Cobalt-60 Radiation Cancer Treatment Machines, 1951

In 1951, two teams of medical physicists, engineers, and radiation oncologists in London (Ontario) and Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) independently, yet cooperatively, designed and assembled the first treatment machines that directed gamma radiation produced by radioactive cobalt-60 onto cancerous tumours in patients. First applied at Victoria Hospital, London on 27 October 1951, this revolutionary treatment has since been used to extend the lives of millions of patients around the world.

[68 words]

Otherwise, the changes listed in the advocate’s checklist address the concerns raised by Brian and the two reviewers.