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accessory stereotactic radiosurgery treatment frame
Date: circa 1961
Inventory Number: 2019-1-0020
Classification: Stereotactic radiosurgery treatment apparatus
Maker: Raymond Nathaniel Kjellberg (1925 - 1993)
Maker: Andreas Koehler (1930 - 2015)
User: Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory (1937 - 2002)
User: Massachusetts General Hospital (1811-present)
Donor: Paul H. Chapman
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Material:
Bibliography:
A Brief History of the Harvard University Cyclotrons
Description:
Appears to be an accessory attachment to frame 2019-1-0019.
Signedunsigned
Historical AttributesThis stereotactic radiosurgery treatment frame held a patient's head rigidly during treatment by proton beam radiation. The seated patient was rotated in order to align the proton beam through the lesion being treated.
This frame was the first used for this pioneering treatment at the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory by Dr. Raymond Kjellberg, an MGH neurosurgeon, starting in 1961. Physicist Andreas Koehler was closely associated with the work at the Cyclotron Laboratory.
Richard Wilson, another Harvard physicist working at the cyclotron and author of a history of the institution, describes the early days as follows:
"...The first suggestion that protons could usefully be used for radiotherapy was made by Associate Professor Robert R. Wilson of Harvard University in 1947. But this idea lay dormant for many years. It was resuscitated by Dr William (Bill) Sweet, head of the Neurosurgery Department in Massachussets General Hospital, in the 1960s. Dr Sweet recruited an able colleague Dr. Raymond (Ray) Kjellberg to try using protons to treat various neurological lesions. Curiously Bill Sweet, being a trustee of Associated Universities Inc which operated Brookhaven National Laboratory, first asked Brookhaven laboratory where they could find a suitable proton beam, only to be told that there was one in his own back yard at Harvard! The Director of the cyclotron, Bill Preston, along with Andy Koehler, enthusiastically made them welcome. Not so welcome was the animal smell accompanying the first experiments on dogs and monkeys! The treatment of the first patient was described at the 2nd International Congress of Neurological Surgeons in Washington on October 17th 1961. A two year old girl was treated for a palm sized tumor, just above the pituitary. It shrank 80%. But the improvement did not last, as the girl died within a couple of years. From then on, Dr Kelleberg decided to concentrate on diseases where removal of the pituitary gland or pituitary ablation could help. These included agromegaly and diabetic retinopathy. (In the 1980s he concentrated on arterovenous malformations)."
This frame was the first used for this pioneering treatment at the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory by Dr. Raymond Kjellberg, an MGH neurosurgeon, starting in 1961. Physicist Andreas Koehler was closely associated with the work at the Cyclotron Laboratory.
Richard Wilson, another Harvard physicist working at the cyclotron and author of a history of the institution, describes the early days as follows:
"...The first suggestion that protons could usefully be used for radiotherapy was made by Associate Professor Robert R. Wilson of Harvard University in 1947. But this idea lay dormant for many years. It was resuscitated by Dr William (Bill) Sweet, head of the Neurosurgery Department in Massachussets General Hospital, in the 1960s. Dr Sweet recruited an able colleague Dr. Raymond (Ray) Kjellberg to try using protons to treat various neurological lesions. Curiously Bill Sweet, being a trustee of Associated Universities Inc which operated Brookhaven National Laboratory, first asked Brookhaven laboratory where they could find a suitable proton beam, only to be told that there was one in his own back yard at Harvard! The Director of the cyclotron, Bill Preston, along with Andy Koehler, enthusiastically made them welcome. Not so welcome was the animal smell accompanying the first experiments on dogs and monkeys! The treatment of the first patient was described at the 2nd International Congress of Neurological Surgeons in Washington on October 17th 1961. A two year old girl was treated for a palm sized tumor, just above the pituitary. It shrank 80%. But the improvement did not last, as the girl died within a couple of years. From then on, Dr Kelleberg decided to concentrate on diseases where removal of the pituitary gland or pituitary ablation could help. These included agromegaly and diabetic retinopathy. (In the 1980s he concentrated on arterovenous malformations)."
Primary SourcesR. N. Kjellberg, A. M. Koehler, W. M. Preston, and W. H. Sweet, "Stereotaxic Instrument for Use with the Bragg Peak of a Proton Beam," 1st Int. Symp. Stereoencephalotomy, Philadelphia, 1961. Confin. Neurol. 22 (1962): 183-189.
ProvenanceDr. Paul Chapman, Neurosurgical Director of the Proton Beam Radiosurgery Program, Massachusetts General Hospital; gift to CHSI, 2019.