The Stanford Medical Linear Accelerator

In January 1956, this little boy was the first patient treated with the linear accelerator at Stanford Medical Center. The patient had lost one eye to retinoblastoma, but treatment saved the other

Reporters and photographers were invited to attend a press demonstration of the medical linear accelerator on April 25 in the Radiology Department of Stanford University Hospitals at, Clay and Webster Streets in San Francisco. An April 27, 1956 press release provided the details for those unable to attend.

• 6-million-volt, 6-foot machine (baby brother of the massive 220-foot-long atom smasher located on the University's Palo Alto campus)
• Construction took more than 4 years
• Funding
• • $113,000 National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health
  • $100,000 American Cancer Society
  • $75,000 James Irvine Foundation of San Francisco (for the specially designed and shielded building)
• Its two-ton bulk hangs from the ceiling of a radiation-proof chamber. It rests in an electrically operated cradle that can tilt it up or down and raise of lower it vertically.
• A motor-driven lead door seals the chamber during treatments. The accelerator operator sits outside at a control board, watching the patient through a window of three-inch lead glass.
• Inside, the patient lies on a special treatment table or sits in a power-driven revolving chair, depending upon the treatment required. In either case he is carefully aligned beforehand with the x-ray beam, and held motionless by ingenious supporting devices. An "intercom" permits conversation between patient and operator.

Want to know more? Here are a few items to get you started.

Published material

• Mitzi Baker. "Medical linear accelerator celebrates 50 years of treating cancer," Stanford Report, April 18, 2007.
• Barbara Boughten. "Rays of Hope," Stanford Magazine, Special Centennial Issue, September 1991. p.263.
• Edward L. Ginzton, Kenneth B. Mallory, and Henry S. Kaplan. "The Stanford medical linear accelerator: I. Design and development," Stanford Medical Bulletin. Vol.15, no.3. 1957 Aug; 15(3):123-40.
• Henry S. Kaplan. "Radiology," First hundred years, Stanford University School of Medicine. Imprint: [San Francisco, 1959?] p.46-48.
• Henry S. Kaplan and Malcolm A. Bagshaw. "The Stanford medical linear accelerator: III. Application to clinical problems of radiation therapy," Stanford Medical Bulletin. Vol.15, no.3. 1957 Aug; 15(3):141-51.
• Richard M. Levy. "Medical Uses of Linear Accelerators," Symposium on Electron Linear Accelerators In Honor of Richard B. Neal's 80th Birthday Held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California on September 5, 1997. SLAC-R-526. p.55-59.
• Otha W. Linton. The World of Stanford Radiology, 1901-2005. Imprint: [Stanford, CA] : Dept. of Radiology; Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University, c2004.
• "Our Growing University: Stepped-up Microwave Research Program," Stanford Review, January 1954, p.14-15.
• Patricia R. Steed. "The Stanford medical linear accelerator: IV. Patient dosimetry," Stanford Medical Bulletin. Vol.15, no.3. 1957 Aug; 15(3):152-8.
• "Stanford's medical accelerator, first to treat cancer patients, is on display at Smithsonian," Sandstone & Tile. Vol.2, no.3, p.15.
• SUML-220 Design, development and testing of a medical linear electron accelerator for high energy radiation therapy, Stanford University. Microwave Laboratory. 1953.
• SUML-251 Design, development and testing of a medical linear electron accelerator for high energy radiation therapy, Stanford University. Microwave Laboratory. 1954.
• SUML-285 Design, development and testing of a medical linear electron accelerator for high energy radiation therapy, Stanford University. Microwave Laboratory. 1955.
• SUML-351 Design, development and testing of a medical linear electron accelerator for high energy radiation therapy, Stanford University. Microwave Laboratory. 1956.
• Takahiro Ueyama and Christophe Lécuyer. "Building Science-based Medicine at Stanford: Henry Kaplan and the Medical Linear Accelerator, 1948-1975," Devices and designs : medical technologies in historical perspective. Edited by Carsten Timmermann and Julie Anderson. p.137-155.
• Times to Remember: The Life of Edward L. Ginzton. Edited by Anne Ginzton Cottrell and Leonard Cottrell. Imprint: Berkeley [Calif.] : Blackberry Creek Press, c1995.
• M. Weissbluth, C.J. Karzmark, R.E. Steele, and A.H. Selby. "The Stanford medical linear accelerator: II. Installation and physical measurements," Radiology. 1959 Feb; 72(2):242-53.

Archival material at Lane Archives

• PhotoFile 9.21 Department of Radiology photographs.
• R747.S7 .H58 v.4 (SP001) "A Ray of Hope: radiotherapy at the Stanford University School of Medicine: an invitation to the friends of radiology" [1968].
• S1D10 (Crowley) 18.41 Linear accelerator, radiation therapy, Long range strategic planning group.
• U0DJ3 Ser.1 9.1-24 Stanford University. Office of Public Affairs, Medical Center Office of Communications, Biographic files: Henry Kaplan.
• U0DJ3 Ser.2 1.32a Commmittee on Cancer Research, 1950-59: Includes: clippings, 1950-57; press releases 1950-58; Current programs in Cancer Research at Stanford, 1955; [U.S. Public Health Service-National Cancer Institute grants held by Stanford faculty, 1957]; Annual report for the period September 1, 1954 to August 31, 1955 on Institutional Research Grant #INSTR-78A Granted by American Cancer Society, Inc. to Stanford University School of Medicine; Application for an Institutional Research Grant for the year beginning September 1, 1953 TO: American Cancer Society, Inc.
• U0DJ3 Ser.3 1.39 New medical linear accelerators installed at Stanford and UCLA [Dr. Henry S. Kaplan, Dr. Edward L. Ginzton] [Includes photographs] 1962 Nov. 28.
• U0DJ3 Ser.4, box 7.25 Department of Radiology photographs.

Archival material at University Archives

• SC317 Henry S. Kaplan Papers, ca.1960-1983.
• SC330 Edward Ginzton Papers, ca. 1937-1992.