How to...
The Cancer Bomb
Exhibit prepared by the
Western Development Museum
The
original Cobalt-60 Beam Therapy Unit, also known as the cobalt bomb,
is on permanent display at the Saskatoon Western Development Museum
(WDM). The Cancer Bomb, a permanent
exhibit sponsored by PotashCorp, honours the 60th anniversary of the
first successful treatment of cancer with this machine at University
Hospital in Saskatoon.
“As a local company with global reach, we felt it was important to help
profile the ground-breaking work of Saskatchewan’s Cobalt-60 team and
the hope they have given to people around the world,” said Denita Stann,
PotashCorp’s Vice President of Investor and Public Relations.
Joan Champ, the exhibit’s curator, agrees: “The cobalt bomb is a shining
example of Saskatchewan’s innovation in health care research – an
innovation that had a worldwide impact,” she said.
Cobalt-60 at 60: The Legacy of Saskatchewan's Innovative Cancer
Treatment -
University of Saskatchewan Cobalt-60 at 60
The WDM considers the cobalt bomb to be one of the most important artifacts in its collection. This machine, and others like it, has saved the lives of millions of cancer patients around the world. This is very much a Saskatchewan - and a Saskatoon - story.
Saskatoon’s cobalt unit treated 6,728 patients until it was replaced in
1972, first by another cobalt radiotherapy machine, and later by a
linear accelerator. By the 1960s, the cobalt-60 machine was standard
equipment for radiation therapy world-wide. These machines are still in
use in many developing countries that previously did not have the
necessary resources for good radiation therapy.
Learn more:
Learn
how the Cobalt-60 worked and more at the University of
Saskatchewan's website:
Cobalt-60 at 60 - Explore our Legacy of Nuclear Medicine Innovation
Go 'Behind-the Scenes' into the making
of the Cancer Bomb exhibit.
The Cancer Bomb - Saskatchewan’s Weapon of “Mass” Destruction"
by Executive Director, Joan Champ in
WDM
Sparks Off
the Anvil Volume 35 Edition 6 November - December
2011 (PDF)
Saskatchewan’s Cobalt-60 Beam Therapy Unit
Inaugurates a New Era in Cancer Treatment (PDF)
by Janet MacKenzie
5 September 2002
WDM Cancer Bomb Media
Release Nov. 29, 2011 (PDF)
