Charles Pecher (26 November 1913 – 28 August 1941) was a Belgian pioneer in nuclear medicine. He discovered and introduced

strontium-89 Strontium-89 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 50.57 days. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-89. Strontium-89 has an application in medicine. History It was used for the first time by ...

in medical therapeutic procedures in 1939. He was the first to report a possible therapeutic role for the beta emitting radionuclide strontium-89 in the palliation of bone pain associated with metastatic bone disease. His

autoradiograph An autoradiograph is an image on an X-ray film or nuclear emulsion produced by the pattern of decay emissions (e.g., beta particles or gamma rays) from a distribution of a radioactive substance. Alternatively, the autoradiograph is also available ...

ies of animals or organs after administration of strontium-89 or phosphorus-32 started the development of bone

scintigraphy Scintigraphy (from Latin ''scintilla'', "spark"), also known as a gamma scan, is a diagnostic test in nuclear medicine, where radioisotopes attached to drugs that travel to a specific organ or tissue (radiopharmaceuticals) are taken internally and ...

. The groundbreaking work of Pecher was forgotten for decades due to the classification of information linked to the

Manhattan project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. The therapeutic use of ⁸⁹Sr was only approved in 1993 for the palliative treatment of breast and prostate cancers metastatic to the bones for use in the US and became the first bone-seeking radiopharmaceutical that came into widespread use.

Biography

Born in Antwerp on 26 November 1913, Pecher was the son of the liberal politician Édouard Pecher and Emilie Speth. After secondary studies at the Koninklijk Atheneum Antwerpen (1932), he continued with a university education in both physics and medicine. He became assistant of professor Pierre Rylant at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he specialized in biophysics. Pecher pioneered in fundamental

neurophysiology Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...

through his evidence of random processes in the nervous system. He received his doctor's degree in 1939. His medical studies were awarded the Armand Kleefeld Prize and earned him a scholarship from the

Belgian American Educational Foundation The Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) is an educational charity. It supports the exchange of university students, scientists and scholars between the United States and Belgium. The foundation fosters the higher education of deserving ...

to continue his research in the United States. On 1 August 1939, Pecher married fellow researcher Jacqueline Van Halteren (31 May 1915 – 16 September 2013) and the couple traveled to the US the following month. Pecher first worked at Harvard University with Edwin Cohn and

George Kistiakowsky George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Preside ...

. In 1940, he was appointed Research Fellow in the Radiation Laboratory at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. After two intense years, Pecher became entangled in the Second World War. In 1940 the

Belgian Government in exile The Belgian Government in London (french: Gouvernement belge à Londres, nl, Belgische regering in Londen), also known as the Pierlot IV Government, was the government in exile of Belgium between October 1940 and September 1944 during World W ...

decided to raise a military unit from pre-war Belgian émigrés and soldiers rescued from

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Free Belgian Forces. A battalion was formed in Canada from Belgian émigrés in the Americas. Pecher saw himself faced with a choice between his patriotic duty and his scientific calling, with the complicating factor of American pressure to remain in work in a domain whose military relevance was fully recognized, with all the secrecy that this entails. In the end, Pecher responded to his convocation for the Belgian army in the United Kingdom. In Joliette, where he was supposed to board for Europe, he died on 28 August 1941. A verdict of suicide was derived from the high dose of barbiturates in his body. His daughter Evelyne was born two months later.

Work

Between 1938 and 1940,

Ernest O. Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation f ...

and William M. Brobeck developed and built a 60-Inch cyclotron, which accelerated deuterons to 19 MeV, the first cyclotron capable of producing medically useful radioisotopes. It was housed in the Crocker Laboratory. In 1940, Pecher was appointed Research Fellow in the Radiation Laboratory of

at the

, where he produced radioisotopes in the cyclotron under the supervision of John H. Lawrence and used them as radioactive tracers. The bones are largely composed of calcium and phosphorus in the form of

tricalcium phosphate Tricalcium phosphate (sometimes abbreviated TCP) is a calcium salt of phosphoric acid with the chemical formula Ca3(PO4)2. It is also known as tribasic calcium phosphate and bone phosphate of lime (BPL). It is a white solid of low solubility. Mo ...

. W. Wesley Campbell and David M. Greenberg and later Pecher demonstrated using radioactive tracers that calcium is almost entirely stored in the bones with small traces being distributed in the

soft tissue Soft tissue is all the tissue in the body that is not hardened by the processes of ossification or calcification such as bones and teeth. Soft tissue connects, surrounds or supports internal organs and bones, and includes muscle, tendons, ligam ...

s. For this reason, the metabolism of calcium attracted very early the interest of physicians looking for applying radioisotopes of calcium for therapeutic purposes. Pecher predicted and then demonstrated that strontium, which belongs to the same

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

in the

periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...

, was absorbed by the human body in a manner similar to calcium. His work with strontium-89, a calcium analogue, eventually led to its administration to a terminal patient with

osteoblastic Osteoblasts (from the Greek combining forms for "bone", ὀστέο-, ''osteo-'' and βλαστάνω, ''blastanō'' "germinate") are cells with a single nucleus that synthesize bone. However, in the process of bone formation, osteoblasts function ...

metastases Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spread from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, then ...

from a metastatic carcinoma of the prostate. A posthumously published

y of an amputated leg with strontium-89 is the first human bone

. It was the third medical radioisotope, after

phosphorus-32 Phosphorus-32 (32P) is a radioactive isotope of phosphorus. The nucleus of phosphorus-32 contains 15 protons and 17 neutrons, one more neutron than the most common isotope of phosphorus, phosphorus-31. Phosphorus-32 only exists in small quantiti ...

and

iodine-131 Iodine-131 (131I, I-131) is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nu ...

introduced respectively by

John H. Lawrence John Hundale Lawrence (January 7, 1904 – September 7, 1991) was an American physicist and physician best known for pioneering the field of nuclear medicine. Background John Hundale Lawrence was born in Canton, South Dakota. His parents, Carl Gu ...

and Joseph G. Hamilton. Pecher demonstrated using two cows the Sr-89 transfer to milk. Pecher filed a patent in May 1941 for the synthesis of strontium-89 and

yttrium-86 Natural yttrium (39Y) is composed of a single isotope yttrium-89. The most stable radioisotopes are 88Y, which has a half-life of 106.6 days and 91Y with a half-life of 58.51 days. All the other isotopes have half-lives of less than a day, except ...

using cyclotrons and described the use of strontium for therapeutic uses . The groundbreaking work of Pecher was forgotten for decades due to the classification of information linked to the

and the American nuclear weapons program. While ⁸⁹Sr with a half-life of 50.6 days is used to treat

bone cancer A bone tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body such as from lung, breast, thy ...

, ⁹⁰Sr is an isotope of concern, with a half-life of 28.90 years, following a

fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

from

nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

and

nuclear accidents A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, lar ...

as it's a common fission product. Its presence in bones can cause bone cancer, cancer of nearby tissues, and

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President H ...

commissioned in 1949 an investigation, codenamed

Project GABRIEL Project GABRIEL was an investigation to gauge the impact of nuclear fallout resulting from nuclear warfare. The United States Atomic Energy Commission surmised that the radioactive isotope strontium-90 (Sr-90) presented the greatest hazard to life ...

, to gauge the impact of radioactive fallout resulting from

nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...

. It surmised that the radioactive isotope

strontium-90 Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and ...

(Sr-90) represented the most serious threat to human health from nuclear fallout. This resulted in the commissioning of

Project SUNSHINE Project SUNSHINE was a series of research studies that began in 1953 to ascertain the impact of radioactive fallout on the world's population. The project was initially kept secret, and only became known publicly in 1956. Commissioned jointly by ...

, which sought to examine the long-term effects of nuclear radiation on the

biosphere The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be ...

due to repeated nuclear detonations of increasing yield. Project SUNSHINE sought to measure the global dispersion of Sr-90 by measuring its concentration in the tissues and bones of the dead. Of particular interest was tissue from the young, whose developing bones have the highest propensity to accumulate Sr-90 and thus the highest susceptibility to radiation damage. SUNSHINE elicited a great deal of controversy when it was revealed that many of the remains sampled were utilized without prior permission from the deceased or from relatives of the dead, which wasn't known until many years later. The seminal contribution of Pecher on the therapeutic use of ⁸⁹Sr was “rediscovered” in the United States in 1976 by Marshall Brucer, former Chairman of the Medical Division of Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. In 1973, two German physicians Nosrat Firusian and Carl G. Schmidt rediscovered, independently from Pecher's work, the therapeutic use of ⁸⁹Sr for the treatment of incurable pain in patients with neoplastic osseous infiltrations. Although not citing Pecher's work, Firusian and Schmidt referred to a 1950 article of John Lawrence and Robert H. Wasserman, in which they stated that "Radioactive strontium has been shown to behave similarly to calcium in the body" citing a 1941 paper of Pecher. This palliative treatment for breast and prostate cancers metastatic to the bones was only approved by the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

in 1993 for use in the US under the commercial name "Metastron", in the form of injectable Strontium Chloride, produced by

Amersham International Amersham plc was a manufacturer of radiopharmaceutical products, to be used in diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine procedures. The company became GE Healthcare following a takeover in 2003, which was based at the original site in Amersh ...

and became the first bone-seeking radiopharmaceutical that came into widespread use. Before leaving for Canada, Pecher filled a patent for a method of transmitting secret messages with radioactive invisible ink.

Biography

Work

References

Further reading