Atoms & Man

Only six years have elapsed since twelve physicians got together in a Spokane hotel and put up $10 each to start an atomic medicine society, loudly proclaiming their hope that it would never grow into "one of those big, formal organizations." Last week 600 members of the big, formal Society of Nuclear Medicine (total membership: 1,500) jammed the Stanley Hotel in Colorado's Estes Park to report progress in applying nuclear science to medicine.

From dozens of technical papers spread over four atom-packed days, it was clear that what was true when the society was founded is still true: nuclear medicine offers no panaceas for any of man's ills. Progress is being made by slow, painstaking steps. And most of it is in basic research; there are some advances in diagnostic techniques, but relatively few in new methods of treatment.

A typical case is that of iodine. No fewer than 21 radioisotopes of this element can be prepared, and the medical profession has found ways to use six of them. Last week Ohio State University's Dr. William G. Myers reported that a seventh, I-125, shows promise as a convenient tracer to follow the metabolic pathways of ordinary iodine. But it has not yet been used in humans. An odd mother-daughter combination is ruthenium-rhodium 106. Long-lived ruthenium 106 gives birth to short-lived rhodium 106, which in turn gives off energetic beta rays. The pair had seemed promising to destroy acid-secreting glands in certain cases of peptic ulcer. But some centers reported they have already quit using it because of excessive danger to technicians handling it. Said Dr. Marshall Brucer, medical chief at the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies and a veteran in the field: "We can't do it all--there will be plenty for our sons and their sons to do."

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