[The story of «waves and rays» in medicine. Part 2 : The history of radiotherapy after the second world war].

Abstract

We take up the historical epic of waves and rays in medicine, starting from the years around the Second World War. In this article, we focus on the benchmarks in the development of radiotherapy, making brief forays into the field of medical imaging when technical developments in this latter field strongly influence the evolution of the former. Following the scientific and technical advances due to the «Manhattan» project, the modern era is witnessing a multitude of medical innovations. The last decades of the twentieth century correspond to the widespread arrival of digitization and computerization, a real booster in diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. Today, we are facing a new revolution, based on the confluence of science and technology and the advent of artificial intelligence. The historical narrative ends arbitrarily a little before this post-modern era, because given the almost exponential speed of evolution, it becomes impossible to make it an accessible narrative for everyone.