Editor Robert H. Bradbury

2007

With supreme irony, the beginnings of modern cancer chemotherapy originated in chemical warfare. Autopsy findings from soldiers killed in the First World War by exposure to sulphur mustard gas led to the proposal in the 1940s that low doses of nitrogen mustard might cause regression of human lymphatic tumors. The pioneering success of this idea, albeit only equating to brief remission of disease, established the principle that rapidly growing tumors could be more susceptible to cytotoxic agents than normal tissues.