Radiation and leukemia in carcinoma of the cervix.

There is still considerable concern over radiation leukemogenesis on the part of physicians as well as laymen. For this reason we have studied the incidence of leukemia in patients with cancer of the cervix who have survived after radium treatment. Cancer of the uterine cervix was selected because it is a common tumor and there are many survivors. In those countries where statistics on the incidence of disease are kept, cervical cancer is known to have a high incidence, ranking after cancer of the digestive tract and of the breast. Survival data for this neoplasm have been studied for many years, and have been published in the Annual Report on the Treatment in Carcinoma of the Uterus (1, 2). No other form of cancer treated with radiation has such precise documentation. It is the only medical situation in which there may be enough cases to establish statistical significance (3). In general, about 40 per cent of the patients survive five years and about 75 per cent survive one year. The radium dosage has be...