History of Oncology

Hippocrates (460.370 B.C.) used the terms carcinoma to describe non-ulcer forming and ulcer-forming tumors. In Greek, these words refer to a crab, because the finger-like spreading projections from a tumor called to mind the shape of a crab

The oldest specimen of a human tumor was found in the remains of skull of a female who lived during the Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC)

The Roman physician Galen (130-200 A.D.) used the word oncos (Greek for swelling) to describe tumours

In the Roman-Byzantine Empire, physicians of Constantinople school explained that the cause of cancer was an excess of black bile

In 1775 the English surgeon Percivall Pott (London, 1714-1788) described an occupational cancer of the scrotum in chimney sweeps, caused by soot collecting under the scrotum

In the 19th century, the German scientist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), often called the "founder of cellular pathology", provided the scientific basis for the modern cytological research and pathologic study of cancer

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (Remscheid, Germany, 1845 – 1923): "On a new kind of rays", Science 1896 Feb 14;3(59):227-31

Pierre Curie (Paris, 1859–1906) and Marie Sklodowska Curie (Warsaw, 1867–1934) discovered the radioactive element radium in 1898

1910 - Discovery of a viral cause of avian cancer by Francis Peyton Rous (Baltimora, October 5, 1879 - New York, February 16, 1970). Rous P. : "A transmissible avian neoplasm (Sarcoma of the common fowl)", J Exp Med. 1910 Sep 1;12(5).696-705

1914 - Proposal by Theodor Boveri (Bamberg, 1862 - Wurzburg, 1915) that cancer can be triggered by chromosomal mutations

1932 - Geoffrey Langdon Keynes in London uses radium as the sole treatment of operable cases of breast cancer (Keynes GL.: "The radium treatment of carcinoma of the breast", Brit J Surg 1942;19:415–80)

Yale University, USA, 1943: Use of nitrogen mustard in lymphomas (Goodman LS et al., Journal of the American Medical Association)

Sidney Farber (1903–1973) showed for the first time in 1948 that folic acid antagonists could induce temporary remission in childhood leukemia (Farber S et al.: “Temporary remissions in acute leukemia in children produced by folic acid antagonist, 4-amino-pteroyl-glutamic acid (aminopterin)”, N Engl J Med 1948;238:787-793)

1976 - Gianni Bonadonna (Milan, Italy): "Our data indicate that patients with potentially curable breast cancer and with positive axillary lymph nodes at the time of mastectomy show a statistically significant reduction in recurrence rate during the first 27 months after radical mastectomy when treated with cyclic prolonged combination chemotherapy. At present, the advantage of CMF appears statistically evident in all subgroups of patients" (Bonadonna G et al.: "Combination chemotherapy as an adjuvant treatment in operable breast cancer ", N Engl J Med. 1976 Feb 19;294(8):405-10)