#radiotherapy — Public Fediverse posts

SWANSEA: Thousands of old cancer centre X-rays destroyed — but their silver is heading to the Royal Mint

Thousands of old X-ray films from Swansea’s cancer centre are being destroyed – but not before the silver they contain has been extracted and sold on to the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, where it could end up as Welsh jewellery.

Staff at the South West Wales Cancer Centre at Singleton Hospital teamed up with specialist metal extraction firm Betts to recover silver from more than 8,000 X-ray films that had passed their retention period and were due for destruction.

The process generated a rebate of more than £1,000 for the radiotherapy department.

Anna Iles, interim head of service for radiotherapy, said the films were a legacy of an older era of cancer treatment. “Historically, for radiotherapy treatment we would produce hard copy X-ray films to verify treatment,” she said. “Now it’s all done electronically.”

The films had originally been stored in the radiotherapy department at Singleton, but as the department expanded the space was needed for other uses.

They were moved to an external storage facility in Cardiff – at a cost to the health board.

When Swansea Bay University Health Board later acquired its own storage facility in Llansamlet, space became available at Singleton for the films to be brought back from Cardiff. That repatriation in itself generated a significant saving for the department.

Of the more than 16,000 X-rays held in storage, around half had passed their retention period and could be lawfully destroyed. Rather than simply disposing of them, the team identified that the films contained recoverable silver and linked up with Betts to extract it.

The process required careful sign-off before it could go ahead. “We worked closely with colleagues in information governance to get sign off that we could send the X-rays to Betts, where they extracted the silver and we then got a rebate of more than £1,000,” said Iles.

The story has an additional Welsh twist. While Betts is based in England, the firm works in partnership with the Royal Mint in Llantrisant – meaning the silver recovered from X-rays taken in Swansea could return to Wales in an entirely new form.

“Betts works in partnership with the Royal Mint, selling the recovered silver, which is then used in the creation of jewellery,” said Iles. “It is quite nice that there is the potential for the silver to come full circle back to Wales.”

The remaining 8,000 or so films that are still within their retention period will continue to be stored until they too can be lawfully destroyed – at which point the same silver extraction process is expected to be repeated.

The South West Wales Cancer Centre provides radiotherapy and oncology services for patients across the Swansea Bay University Health Board area and beyond. It is based at Singleton Hospital on the edge of Swansea Bay.

Swansea Bay University Health Board says the project demonstrates how clinical teams can find creative and sustainable ways to generate savings and reduce waste – while also ensuring sensitive patient information is securely destroyed in the process.

Andy Spary Runs London Marathon Two Years After Stage Three Colon Cancer Diagnosis – News and Statistics

May 3, 2026 A London marathon with over one million ballot entries did …
#London #UnitedKingdom #UK #GB #England #Headlines #News #Europe #EU #AndySpary #Bowelcancer #Britain #cancerrecovery #cancerstigma #chemotherapy #coloncancer #GoFundMe #GreatBritain #london #LondonMarathon #marathonrunner #mentalresilience #radiotherapy #stagethreecancer #Trekstock
https://www.europesays.com/uk/934648/

https://www.europesays.com/uk/934648/ Andy Spary Runs London Marathon Two Years After Stage Three Colon Cancer Diagnosis – News and Statistics #AndySpary #BowelCancer #Britain #CancerRecovery #CancerStigma #chemotherapy #ColonCancer #England #GoFundMe #GreatBritain #london #LondonMarathon #MarathonRunner #MentalResilience #radiotherapy #StageThreeCancer #Trekstock #UK #UnitedKingdom

Andy Spary Runs London Marathon Two Years After Stage Three Colon Cancer Diagnosis – News and Statistics

May 3, 2026 A London marathon with over one million ballot entries did not include Andy Spary. Around…
#UnitedKingdom #UK #Europe #EU #AndySpary #bowelcancer #cancerrecovery #cancerstigma #chemotherapy #coloncancer #gofundme #GreatBritain #londonmarathon #marathonrunner #mentalresilience #Radiotherapy #stagethreecancer #Trekstock
https://www.europesays.com/2962434/

The Millisecond That Could Change Cancer Treatment

https://spectrum.ieee.org/flash-radiotherapy

#HackerNews #CancerTreatment #MillisecondInnovation #Radiotherapy #HealthTech #IEEE

https://www.europesays.com/ie/372252/ TREM2 helps macrophages survive and repair radiation damaged skin #Apoptosis #Éire #hospital #IE #Ireland #Macrophage #radiotherapy #Research #Science #skin #Stress #Technology #Wound #WoundHealing

BetaGlue Therapeutics Expands its Clinical Trial in Italy https://www.byteseu.com/1593039/ #BetaGlue #BetaGlueTherapeuticsSpA #IntervantionalRadiology #Italy #Oncology #Pancreas #PDAC #Radiotherapy #SolidTumors #UnresectableSolidTumors #YntraDose

Triaptosis-based therapeutic innovations could offer renewed hope for cancer patients

Cancer remains one of the most critical global public health challenges, exerting profound social, economi…
#NewsBeep #News #Health #AU #Australia #Cancer #Cell #CellDeath #Chemotherapy #Cold #Efficacy #Ferroptosis #Immunotherapy #Intracellular #LifeExpectancy #Malignant #oncology #ProgrammedCellDeath #publichealth #Radiotherapy #research #Surgery #Technology #therapy #Tumor
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/321116/

New NIH grants fuel research in oral cancer treatment and pain relief

Researchers at the School of Denti…
#NewsBeep #News #Health #addiction #AU #Australia #Calcium #Cancer #CancerTreatment #carcinoma #Cell #DentalSchool #Dentistry #Drugs #Endodontics #Inflammasome #Inflammation #Ion #IonChannel #MouseModel #Mucositis #Neck #Nursing #oral #oralcancer #Pain #painmanagement #Radiotherapy #Receptor #research #SquamousCellCarcinoma #Therapeutics #Tumor #Xenograft
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/269995/

https://www.europesays.com/ie/168909/ New NIH grants fuel research in oral cancer treatment and pain relief #Addiction #Calcium #cancer #CancerTreatment #carcinoma #Cell #DentalSchool #Dentistry #Drugs #Éire #Endodontics #Health #IE #Inflammasome #inflammation #Ion #IonChannel #Ireland #MouseModel #Mucositis #Neck #Nursing #oral #OralCancer #Pain #PainManagement #radiotherapy #Receptor #Research #SquamousCellCarcinoma #Therapeutics #Tumor #Xenograft

The Edinburgh Radium Bomb: the thread about the Beechmount Institute

A couple of things happened recently. A fire at the former Corstorphine Hospital prompted me to read up and write about the history of that establishment and it was also the annual Christian Aid bumper booksale in Edinburgh, at which I picked up an excellent history of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh1 (amongst many other things.) These circumstances converged to pique my interest in Beechmount, a grand mansion house which was, for a short time at least, the exotic and atomic sounding National Radium Centre and a pioneer in the field of radiotherapy.

Beechmount, set amongst 8 acres of woodland, was built in 1900 in an Italianate style to designs by Messrs McArthy & Watson as the private residence of Sir George and Lady Mary Anne Anderson. The land was feud from the Beechwood Mains estate at Murrayfield and its name was a simple amalgam of the neighbouring properties of Beechwood and Belmont.

Sir George was treasurer of the Bank of Scotland from 1898 to 1917, which explains how the coat of arms of that institution came to be found above the house’s main door and grand fireplace. He was the first Scottish “banker knight“, his title conferred for services to his industry. After his retirement in 1917, the Andersons spent their retirement at Beechmount as respected members of Edinburgh society. Sir George died there on December 1st 1923, aged 78. Lady Anne survived him before she too passed away in the house on 26th May 1926, aged 80. Her husband had intended that the house be left to his bank as an official residence for its treasurer but Lady Anne instead bequeathed it to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. She recommended it be used as a convalescent home for servicemen injured during World War I but gave the hospital managers final discretion as to its use. In addition, £5,000 was left to them to help adapt the property to its new purpose.

And that may have been that for the Beechmount story had it not been for the rapid development of a new field of medicine. In 1926, the Infirmary had been able to purchase 500mg of the radioactive element Radium – a substantial proportion of the entire global supply of it at that time – as the result of a donation of £5,000. It began to experiment in its use for the treatment of “malignant disease“; cancer. Prior to this, the only known treatment was surgical removal of tumours and the new branch is what we now call Radiotherapy. To begin with, Radium treatments were undertaken in the main buildings of the Infirmary at Lauriston Place by introducing tiny amounts of the element directly into tumours using needles, different coloured threads attached to them indicating the radioactive strength. However it soon became clear that a specialised unit dedicated to the therapy would be desirable and in 1928 it was decided that Lady Anderson’s bequest should be fitted out as such; the Beechmount Radium Institute.

The medical promise of Radium was great but so too were the costs, dangers and difficulties associated with its use. As a result, in 1929 the government established the Radium Trust to source and hold supplies of the wonder material for the nation and the National Radium Commission to oversee its regulation and distribution. The Commission did not want to deal purely with hospitals and so in 1930 a joint partnership between the Royal Infirmary and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh was set up to combine their teaching and research in the field in order that they could mutually benefit from the national supply. In the meantime £11,000 was spent on the Beechmount project and the new facility, with 36 in-patient beds, was opened in October 1932. To begin with patients continued to be treated at the Infirmary and were sent to the new annexe for their pre- and post-treatment convalescent care, however the entire process was soon centralised at the Institute.

The facility was overseen by the respected surgeon John James McIntosh (J.J.M.) Shaw, a military doctor, pioneer in re-constructive plastic surgery and member of both the Radium Trust and Commission. Its first matron was Margaret Colville Marshall, later “Lady Superintendent” of the Infirmary and awarded the OBE for this service. From his base at Beechmount, J.J.M. oversaw the establishment of the Cancer Control Organisation for Edinburgh and Southeast Scotland in 1934, a group of influential (and wealthy) members of society to help organising towards the running costs of the Institute. That same year the Radium Commission approved the Infirmary’s proposal that Beechmount become the National Radium Centre for southeast Scotland, the first of five such centres proposed for the country.

With the support of the Commission an additional 80omg of Radium was acquired and combined with the existing supply to form a mass unit of the material that was called a “Radium Bomb“. This made history as the first such Bomb outside of London and meant that treatments could be made indirectly, focussing the emitted radiation towards the tumour from a few inches away, rather than introducing it directly on needles. This new method was far more efficient and effective and was far safer for both the patient and the medical staff. The Commission also provided funding to pay for the running costs of the Bomb and to safely maintain and house it.

In 1936, J.J.M. reported that “treatment of malignant disease in certain situations such as the throat by means of the radium mass unit or ‘bomb’ has surpassed anything previously known“. He was joined at this time by Dr Margaret (Peggy) Tod as Honorary Associate Assistant Surgeon. Tod stayed for only a year before moving on to become the Deputy Director of the Holt Radium Institute in Manchester, but made “an outstanding contribution to the pioneering work at Beechmount“. The Infirmary’s capacity to administer radiotherapy increased exponentially as a result of dedicating Beechmount to it; in 1939 it reported over 15,000 treatments had been administered, up from only 907 just five years previously.

From 1937, the matron was Jean Ritchie and she served in this post until 1939 when the Institute was closed “for the duration” and re-purposed as a convalescent Auxiliary Hospital; this scheme was directly funded by central government and allowed patients to be removed from the main Infirmary thus freeing up capacity there for dedicated military use or for civilians injured as a result of air raids. The Radium Bomb was removed to the Infirmary and buried at the bottom of a 40 foot deep well shaft to avoid it resulting in a “dirty bomb” in the event it was hit by an air raid. Sadly, Dr Shaw died on wartime active service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Cairo in September 1940, aged 54, having contracted dysentery while serving as the Consultant Surgeon to the Army GHQ.

After the war, Radiotherapy in Edinburgh was concentrated at the Western General Hospital and Beechmount was not returned to that use. Instead it remained as a 46 bed convalescent home, operated in tandem with the Corstorphine Home and attached to the Royal Infirmary. In 1974, reorganisation of the medical bureaucracy saw Beechmount detached from the Infirmary and grouped in with other small district hospitals in the Lothians to provide specialist geriatric convalescent care.

One long-standing problem of Beechmount was that the building was accessible from the main road only by a very steep set of stairs or a driveway with multiple hairpin bends. In 1969 an ambulance driver did not correctly apply the brakes of his vehicle resulting in it careering 50 yards down the embankment before progress was arrested by a mature tree. Fortunately the occupants, Mrs Ella Hamersley and Mr Charles Baker, suffered only minor injuries. For the benefit of less mobile visitors to the hospital, members of the Corstorphine Rotary Club used their own cars to provide a shuttle service of rides up and down the gradient during visiting hours.

In 1987 the Lothian Health Board denied that it had plans to either close Beechmount Hospital or convert it into a unit for the specialised treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS. However the following year it proposed the closure and sale of the hospital amid a widespread rationalisation and cost cutting plan. The Board cited the fact that the facility was costing £360,000 a year to run, its opponents countered that the running costs of convalescent hospital beds was only a third of that at major hospitals like the Royal Infirmary or the Western General. But the site was potentially very valuable to developers and with the support of the Secretary of State for Scotland, in what the Daily Record dubbed the “Sick Sale of the Century“, Scotland’s health boards were backed from the top to dispose of a swathe of surplus property on the open market to raise money for their capital budgets. Beechmount was closed in 1989 and the house and grounds were to be sold the following year for £1.8 million. The sale fell through however, as did a scheme to convert it into a Hotel. In 1993 the Health Board intended to build a new dental hospital at Beechmount but found it could not afford the renovation costs of £6 million. The premises were in the interim leased to the Scottish Wildlife Trust who used it for offices and returned to the market and finally sold by the Health Board in 1996, the former staff accommodation being converted into apartments and returned to residential use. It was on the market again in 2018 for offers over £4.5 million and eventually sold. It is currently (2025) being used as emergency accommodation for those experiencing homelessness.

1. Story of a Great Hospital. The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh 1729-1929, by A. Logan Turner. ↩︎

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Sesión de radioterapia contra el cáncer con el sincrotón de electrones de 70 MeV del doctor Robert Stone en el Centro Médico de San Francisco de la Universidad de California en 1958. 📷 Fred Lyon #salud #health #radioterapia #radiotherapy

So if you spend an hour with me, online or in person, know I'll be clenching my internals at least 20 times during our time together.

#cancer #cervicalcancer #pelvicfloor #FUC #radiotherapy

Did you know that dying #cancer cells in solid #tumors can drive tumor-associated #macrophages (TAMs) in both directions? They can become pro-tumorigenic and anti-tumorigenic.

Here is a very nice review article about the interface of TAMs with dying cancer cells in #immunooncology by the lab of Abhishek D. Garg at KU Leuven: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/11/23/3890

#celldeath #efferocytosis #microenvironment #immunosuppression #chemotherapy #radiotherapy

🚨 Les opérateurs LV revendiquent une attaque informatique et un vol de données relatives aux activités d'Amethyst Group (amethyst-radiotherapy.com)

#europe #france #austria #italy #poland #romania #uk #cancer #medical #cyber #radiation #threats #healthcare #ransomware #networks #mail #health #technologies #medecine #doctors #oncology #clinics #therapy #partnerships #web #data #gdpr #esanté #radiotherapy #security #vision #innovative #centres #rgpd #patients #santé #research #databreach #internet #business #ambulatory #solutions #employees #market #financial #email #care #nurses #radio #clinical #software #informatique