News Archive

Barbara Hertz

Radioactive iodine experiment in 1937, left to right, Arthur Roberts and Saul Hertz. Photo courtesy of Barbara Hertz

Every health physicist is acutely aware of the enormous benefit nuclear medicine has made to mankind. This month we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the early use of radioactive iodine (RAI).

Massachusetts General Hospital's Dr. Saul Hertz (1905–1950) predicted that radionuclides "...would hold the key to the larger problem of cancer in general" and may just be the best hope for diagnosing and treating cancer successfully. Yes, RAI has been used for decades to diagnose and treat disease. Today's "theranostics"—a term that is a combination of "therapy" and "diagnosis"—is utilized in the treatment of thyroid disease and cancer.

This short note is to celebrate Dr. Hertz, who conceived and brought from bench to bedside the medical uses of RAI, then in the form of 25-minute iodine-128. On 31 March 1941, Hertz administered the first therapeutic use of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) cyclotron-produced RAI. This landmark case was the first in Hertz's clinical studies conducted with MIT physicist Arthur Roberts, PhD.

Hertz's research and successful utilization of radionuclides to diagnose and treat diseases and conditions established the use of radiation dosimetry and the collaboration between physics and medicine and other significant practices. Sadly, Hertz (a WWII veteran) died at a very young age.

To read and hear more about Hertz and the early history of RAI and theranostics see:

• Saul Hertz MD 1905–1950
• "Celebrating Eighty Years of Radionuclide Therapy and the Work of Saul Hertz"
• "The Story of Saul Hertz"