Minas Gerais Radium Institute: at the forefront of radiotherapy in Brazil, 1923-1935

This article proposes to study the first 12 years of the Minas Gerais Radium Institute, founded in 1922. Its work in the fight against cancer in Brazil, albeit still little known, is coming to light as its institutional documents are studied. A database has been prepared using information from its patient register, based on which statistical analyses have been done to identify the types of cancer and treatments available there between 1923 and 1935. This register is one of five recently unearthed at the Medicine Memory Center of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Through them, the earliest experiments in radiotherapy in Brazil can be reconstituted, and its development and the influence of this model hospital can be mapped out.

Instituto de Radium de Minas Gerais; history of health; cancer; radiotherapy