Raymond
V. Damadian, MD, conceived the idea of a using NMR
(MR) to detect medical disease and proposed the MR
body scanner to accomplish it. To prove its feasibility,
he conducted experiments and discovered that cancer
tissues produce abnormal MR signals compared to normal
tissues, with relaxation times that are markedly elevated
relative to normal tissues. He also discovered that
the healthy tissues themselves exhibit significant
differences in MR relaxation times. The relaxation
differences among the normal tissues supply the contrast
needed to see anatomic detail that was missing in other
medical imaging technologies (x-ray and ultrasound).
Recognizing that the abnormal MR signals generated
by cancers could be used to detect cancers non-invasively,
he went on to build the first whole body magnetic resonance
scanner, which he named Indomitable, and to achieve
the first MRI scan of the live human body, as well
as the first scan of a patient with cancer. The tissue
signals he discovered and their marked differences
among the normal tissues and also between normal tissue
and diseased tissue have remained the source of all
MRI images today.
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS – THE
SAME YEAR AS THE NOBEL PRIZE
“The
initial concept for the medical application of NMR,
as it was then called, originated with the discovery
by Raymond Damadian in 1971 that certain mouse tumours
displayed elevated relaxation times compared with
normal tissues in vitro. This exciting discovery
opened the door for a complete new way of imaging
the human body where the potential contrast between
tissues and disease was many times greater than that
offered by X-ray technology and ultrasound ….
NMR developed into a laboratory spectroscopic technique
capable of examining the molecular structure of compounds,
until Damadian’s ground-breaking discovery
in 1971.” (MRI from Picture to Proton,
Cambridge University Press, 2003)
NOBEL VIOLATION
OF THE TRUTH
In 2003, The Noble Prize for
the MRI was awarded, not to Dr. Damadian, but
to two nuclear magnetic resonance scientists.
One employed a gradient, invented 50 years earlier
by others, to improve the image Dr. Damadian
discovered. Another was a member of a group who
found a better way to use gradients to make an
MRI image. Although the prize allowed for three
winners, Dr. Damadian was passed over.
The award is a calculated affront to
the truth of science.
It is also an affront to the will
of Alfred Nobel, in which he specified that the award
in medicine can only be given for “discovery,” not
for technological improvements.
Thankfully, the truth of history endures.
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS – 2
YEARS AFTER THE NOBEL PRIZE
“By
the final few decades of the twentieth century,
medical practitioners were exploiting developments
in nuclear
physics to provide a range of new ways of peering
inside the human body …. Another technique
developed during the 1970s was MRI (magnetic resonance
imaging). The technique was initially developed
by Raymond Damadian (1936 -), working at the Downstate
Medical Center in New York, making use of the fact
that different atomic nuclei emit radio waves of
predictable frequencies when exposed to a magnetic
field. Damadian noted that tumorous cells emitted
signals different from those emitted by healthy
tissue
and used this as the basis for a new technique
for identifying cancers. Damadian and his fellow
workers
produced the first MRI scan of the human body in
1977.”
(Making Modern
Science, A Historical Review, The University of Chicago
Press,
2005).
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, SUNY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER
(DOWNSTATE MEDICAL CENTER), BROOKLYN – 5 YEARS
AFTER THE NOBEL PRIZE
(Richard Macchia, MD, and Paul Dreizen, MD, in the
UUP Voice, the official publication of United University
Professions (UUP), State University of New York.)
"All
truths are easy to understand once they are
discovered; the point is to discover them."
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
October
20, 2003 (
