When Marie Found the Curie: A History of Radium in Medicine

<p>Along the Czech–German border in a mountainous region lies a mining town called Joachimsthal, known for its silver ores. During the 1500s, these mines provided Europe with raw materials to produce coins, originally called “Joachimsthaler”, eventually shorted to “Thaler”, which is where the root of the word “dollar” comes from. </p> <p>During their work, the miners would sometimes come across pitchblende, a blackish ore dubbed “bad luck rock”, as it usually meant you had hit the end of the silver supply in that section. Although thought useless at the time, “bad luck rock” took on a whole other meaning centuries later when it became the source of an unprecedented cancer treatment: radium.</p> <p>This naturally occurring radioactive element (#88 on the periodic table) emits particles from its nucleus as it decays into lighter elements. Radium itself is a byproduct of the decay of uranium into lead.</p> <p>As the 19th century came to a close, critical advances in physics opened the door to this monumental medical innovation. It started with the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, launching a new era of scientific inquiry into the structure of the atom.</p> <p>One of Becquerel’s doctoral students was the now world-famous Marie Curie, who, along with her husband Pierre, discovered radium only two years after Becquerel’s breakthrough. </p> <p>Becquerel had noticed that uranium ore could fog a photographic plate, even if left in the dark. This stood out to Curie, who theorized that the emission of rays was a property of uranium built into the structure of its atoms. This was a startling idea because the thinking at the time was that atoms were the most basic building blocks of any element. She named these emission rays “radioactivity”. </p> <figure><img alt="Marie-Curie | Source: Wikimedia" class="img-responsive" src="https://cdn.storymd.com/optimized/OoYBGpXtMd/thumbnail.jpg" /> <figcaption>Marie-Curie. <em>Source: Wikimedia</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>Curie and her husband got to work and soon realized that pure uranium ore was not nearly as radioactive as the pitchblende ore it came from. The conclusion? There must be new undiscovered elements lying within, and this set the stage for isolating “polonium” (named after her homeland, Poland) and radium for the first time.</p> <p>Soon after its discovery, radium found its way into all sorts of applications; for example, it was combined with paint to create a luminescent dye that could identify items in the dark, like airplane and watch dials.</p> <p>The potential of radium went far beyond dials, however, and Curie knew it. She and her husband believed that scientific research should be a force for public good and championed its utility. As such, they chose not to patent their isolation technique for radium because of the immense benefits that awaited if scientists could harness the material to its maximum potential.</p> <p>Curie’s contributions were pivotal to advances in nuclear energy and the atomic bomb, geology, and other areas of science. In terms of medicine, she realized that radium destroys diseased cells faster than healthy ones, and that meant we had a new tool with which to destroy tumors. </p> <p>Medical interest in radium exploded, and some proponents argued for widespread, seemingly indiscriminate application. Not much regulation existed to curb radium in the early 20th century, and ambitious inventors came up with products that would be unthinkable today. </p> <p>Revigator was a water dispenser that contained radium as an additive to cure sickness: "the lost element of original freshness — radioactivity," as per the advertisement. Doctors used it as a kind of multipurpose therapeutic weapon against all sorts of issues like acne, varicose veins, epilepsy, and more. </p> <p>Naturally, it didn’t take long to realize that introducing radium so liberally to the human body was, in fact, highly destructive, and these practices were promptly ended. Despite how misguided these initial applications were, Curie struck gold by demonstrating that radium could be an effective anti-cancer tool, capable of shrinking tumors.</p> <p>With interest gaining momentum, new therapies were devised, such as sealed metal containers carrying radium salts being placed in patients’ bodies close to the tumor site. </p> <p>A second approach involved collecting radium “emanations” (radon gas) in glass tubes, which were then implanted directly into the body. This was an early form of what we now call brachytherapy (internal radiation therapy), a practice that allowed for the irradiation of many patients on the same day using the same installation.</p> <figure><img alt="Brachytherapy | Source: © 2011 Terese Winslow, U.S. Govt. has certain rights" class="img-responsive" src="https://cdn.storymd.com/optimized/PApNVGivd5/thumbnail.jpg" /> <figcaption>Brachytherapy. <em>Source: © 2011 Terese Winslow, U.S. Govt. has certain rights</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>Cervical cancer was treated with radium tubes more than any other subtype, and this procedure was common up until the ‘60s and ‘70s when other radionuclides took over. Skin cancer and mammary carcinoma were also targeted using radium tubes. </p> <p>Another use for radium was inserting needles into the lip, mouth, or other areas of the body. This process was later perfected to the point that we could plant tiny doses of radium close to the tumor bed, minimizing the patient’s exposure to this otherwise dangerous element. This procedure was a contributing factor in the development of oncological radiotherapy, and these techniques are still widespread today, albeit in a refined form.</p> <p>X-rays were revolutionized by Curie’s efforts. They were discovered in 1896 by fellow Nobel laureate, Wilhelm Roentgen, and X-ray machines became a point of study for Curie. When World War I began in 1914, she made critical advances that impacted events on the battlefield, and radium was front and center. She employed the element to be the gamma-ray source on X-ray machines, allowing for more accurate and stronger X-rays. </p> <p>On top of this, she developed smaller X-ray machines that were easier to transport on the battlefield by medics. Surgeons were now able to use information gathered from these machines to guide their surgeries, undoubtedly saving many lives.</p> <p>As radium’s potential gathered momentum in the early 20th century, numerous institutes dedicated to its study were founded all over Europe from Stockholm to Paris and Warsaw, with Curie’s advocacy playing an essential part. She went on to become a laureate of two Nobel Prizes, blazing a trail for women in the sciences as the first European woman to obtain a degree of Doctor of Science, which challenged the idea of science being a male-exclusive domain. </p> <p>Today, we understand that radiation works by damaging DNA in cells and that cancer cells are less adept at repairing this DNA damage than normal cells, so they die preferentially when radium is applied sensibly. Before we understood this mechanism, people who handled radium weren’t aware of the proper safety precautions and suffered serious consequences — including Curie herself.</p> <figure><img alt="Radiation can harm biological systems by damaging the DNA of cells. | Source: OpenStax" class="img-responsive" src="https://cdn.storymd.com/optimized/JA0a3DtOo9/thumbnail.jpg" /> <figcaption>Radiation can harm biological systems by damaging the DNA of cells. <em>Source: OpenStax</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>She died in 1934 of aplastic anemia, a blood disease probably caused by long-term, low-level exposure to radiation. Some of her books and documents are still so radioactive that they are stored in lead boxes. </p> <p>Radium is rarely used in cancer treatment today as we have since created radioisotopes that are much safer to handle and administer than radium or radon seeds, but the legacy of Curie lives on today: “All medicine that relies on radioactivity — on irradiating people — goes back to Marie Curie,” said Dr Spencer Weart, former director of the Center for History of Physics in Maryland, US. “She made the discovery that millions of people have since used.”</p> <h2>More on Radiation Therapy</h2><ul><li><a href="https://soulivity.storymd.com/journal/pwgrrdof4j-radiation-therapy-to-treat-cancer" target="_blank">Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer</a></li><li><a href="https://soulivity.storymd.com/journal/yj59nq6cnw-radioactive-isotopes" target="_blank">Radioactive Isotopes</a></li><li><a href="https://soulivity.storymd.com/journal/yj59966fnw-radiation-in-healthcare" target="_blank">Radiation in Healthcare: Imaging Procedures</a></li></ul>