The 1970s was a decade of rapid growth and change, for both the nation and for the newly formed department. Many clinical advances were achieved, and the groundwork was put in place for the development of our educational mission. Some cutting-edge technologies and methodologies were either created or furthered here, and this period brought the realization that it is was necessary for radiation oncology to expand as a field in the state of Alabama. UAB was going to be the organization that led the charge. A new facility was built and opened in 1976 in recognition of the regional void in essential cancer treatment facilities. Dr. Roth and Jill Caranto, RT (R)(T), CMD agreed that the current home to Radiation Oncology, the Lurleen B. Wallace Tumor Institute, was born out of Lurleen Wallace’s bout with cancer. “No one in the state had the facilities to provide her with necessary treatments at that time, and that kind of awakened legislators to the need to get new facilities in place in Alabama.” The city of Birmingham’s steel industry was waning and UAB was the new wunderkind. Funding was quickly available for the project. “We designed it (The Lurleen B. Wallace Tumor Institute) originally to house Radiation Oncology in the Basement and on the First Floor, with Medical Oncology up above,” recalls Dr. Brascho, a former department physician. Medical Oncology eventually outgrew the space, leading to the department’s move to The Kirklin Clinic when it opened in 1993. UAB also began providing traveling dosimetric services for brachytherapy patients at other facilities in Alabama. “We had an old Winnebago that we used to carry the tools of the trade around to other facilities. In fact, we had people traveling all over the state on a regular basis, helping other facilities help their cancer patients,” exclaimed Dr. Brascho. Many of the advancements in radiation oncology during the 1970’s were related to treatment planning. Dr. Brascho was a pioneer at using ultrasound for improving the accuracy of treatment planning. His revolutionary methods proved to be much more precise than utilizing wires for targeting. According to Ivan Brezovich, Ph.D., Dr. Brascho “was so respected for his contributions, he became one of the few MD’s to be inducted into the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) as an honorary member.” Other advancements were made by other contributors. Said Dr. Brascho, “Ben Blackburn developed a 3-field, perineal technique using special compensators with the Cobalt unit. This technique allowed for more tolerable doses to be delivered to patients.” Some of Ben Blackburn’s ideas in the field were so ahead of their time that Dr. Spencer, detailing some early advances in our department, noted: “Ben Blackburn was a masters-trained physicist that was thirty years ahead of the field in some aspects.” Some very notable work on hyperthermia came from Dr. Brezovich, Ruby Meredith, M.D., Ph.D., John Durant, M.D. and Robert Kim, M.D. The goal was more effective cancer treatment, built upon the idea that combining heat with radiation provides a synergism that improves the rate of killing cancer cells. Most of the patients treated with these techniques were maxed out on conventional treatments. The UAB team measured success with this new treatment by the tumor’s shrinkage. They had many therapeutic techniques for heating a tumor, including externally applied electrodes, and implanted electrodes.

When Dr. Bonner was hired as the department’s third chair, those that hired him had aspirations that he’d elevate the program to an international level. During this ascent, several grand achievements highlighted the decade, but Dr. Bonner’s own Cetuximab research has been recognized worldwide, changing the standard of care in treating head & neck cancers. After his research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it was cited as one of the top six most important cancer discoveries for 2006. New therapeutic devices and radioimmunotherapy (RIT) agents advanced from clinical trials and into clinical use, including Zevalin and Bexxar. The efforts of Dr. Meredith were instrumental in gaining the FDA-approval of both agents. Dr. Bonner was interested in providing patients with a facility that combined medical oncology care and radiation oncology care in the same location. John Brinkerhoff, R.Ph., MBA, then-current Executive Administrator of the department, worked with Dr. Bonner to take The Kirklin Clinic at Acton Road from dream to reality. The facility opened in 2002 and quickly became a popular destination for cancer care for patients throughout the region. Initially equipped with both a Varian linear accelerator and a Tomotherapy unit, this facility also provided patients with ample parking and outside-the-city convenience, with the same high-quality care offered at the core facility. While many other medical disciplines also practice in this facility, cancer care is still the primary activity here. The Tomotherapy unit was the first FDA-approved IGRT device. Jennifer De Los Santos is the primary Radiation Oncologist on site, but many other faculty members from the core facility at UAB also regularly see patients here. Kay Honeycutt led the administrative effort to open this facility and Ginna Blaylock acts as director of operations today. The department’s medical residency program continued its growth in both size and stature, and began accepting two new residents each year, and by mid-decade, yielding a total of eight in the program at any given time. Besides attracting some of the nation’s top medical school talent, the UAB residency program has yielded excellent rankings and board scores. “We’ve consistently ranked among the top ten percentile among all training programs in board scores,” noted John Fiveash, M.D. We continue to be one of the few programs to offer post-residency fellowships. The program also had the nation’s top-ranked score on the physics portion of the exam in 2000. Additionally, the UAB Radiation Therapist training program continued to grow. All therapists-in-training began regular rotations through both our core and The Kirklin Clinic at Acton Road facilities. RapidArc™ was another first in the department’s history. Richard Popple, Ph.D., led the effort to take this new technology from Varian Medical Systems into direct patient care. In April 2008, the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology became the first site in the United States to treat a patient with this technology. The clinical implications of RapidArc™ include improved speed of treatment, which improves a patient’s level of comfort, and potentially improved targeting, which can lead to improved outcomes. In all, three new Varian linear accelerators and one Tomotherapy unit were commissioned into operation during the decade, in addition to many other state-of-the-art technologies. Stereotactic radiosurgery procedures are performed regularly by our physicians in a collaborative effort at the UAB Highlands facility. A number of other therapies are also offered, including High-Dose Rate (HDR) and Low Dose Rate (LDR) treatments, and treatments with a number of experimental agents as well. UAB Radiation Oncology installed the Aria Treatment Planning platform upon its initial release. The pediatrics program, which is the only such program in the state, continued to expand during the decade and future growth is anticipated into the next decade.