University of Virginia Library

Radiology Professors
Granted Recognition
At Chicago Meeting

Two teams from the University
Hospital received special
recognition for exhibits displayed
at the recent annual Radiological
Society of North America
meeting in Chicago.

William J. Wilson, assistant
professor of radiology, Charles
A. Dobry, resident in radiology,
and Richard Wetzel, assistant
professor of internal medicine
and radiology, received a "cum
laude" award for their cesium
myocardial scanning procedure.

Merit Certificate

Yung Son, assistant professor
and acting chief of radiation
therapy, and Jack Wakely, radiation
physicist, received a certificate
of merit for their exhibit,
"Percutaneous Implantation of
198 Gold Seeds and Computer
Dosimetry."

The exhibit by Mr. Wilson
and his colleagues concerned
their work with establishing definite
diagnosis of coronary artery
disease.

Injected Cesium

They injected cesium, a radioactive
element, intravenously into
a patient with suspected heart
trouble. An external scanning
device then was used to plot the
degree of radioactivity in the
heart muscle.

Areas within the muscle having
a lowered oxygen supply
from a constricted artery, for example,
or having scar tissue, indicating
a previous heart attack,
will have a considerably lower
concentration of cesium than
normal. This shows up as light
areas on the final X-ray films.

Gold Seeds

The exhibit by Dr. Son and
Dr. Wakely is a result of their
work with radioactive gold seeds
(about the size of grass seed)
which have long been used as
treatment for residual cancers
not responding to external radiation.
The exhibit showed an
improved method of implantation,
which is done with a directed
gun.

They prepared plaster casts
for the body parts to be treated.
Each cast had small holes directly
in line with the cancerous
tissue to be treated to guide the
gun. X-ray films taken before
and after implantation check
alignment and exact placement.

Even Dosage Needed

The main problem with this
type of radiation treatment is
assuring even dosage. Formerly,
tables of average dosage were
consulted, which did not reflect
the actual radiation throughout
the tissue.

Mr. Son and Mr. Wakely fed
information received from the
X-rays after implantation into a
computer, which calculates the
exact dosage being received.