Advances in radiation therapy.

the discovery of x-rays by Roentgen and radium by the Curies, the first patient was treated with therapeutic x-rays. During the first few decades of the 20th century, the use of radiation increased significantly. The earliest uses of therapeutic radiation often involved treating gynecologic malignancies. Over the next one hundred years, radiation therapy became one of the integral treatment approaches for many cancers. Currently, it is an important therapeutic component in the management of many gynecologic malignancies, including cancers of the uterine cervix, uterine corpus, vulva and vagina.