The team -- Thomas, Ragde and two internists, Ranier Storb, MD, and Robert Epstein, MD -- studied how bone marrow transplantation might cure leukemia and other cancers of the blood by replacing the diseased marrow with healthy marrow.

Ragde said the Nobel Peace Prize for the research did not surprise him. Not only did the five years of work change his life, but he also became good friends with Thomas.


According to Ragde, his greatest career accomplishment was template-directed brachytherapy for prostate cancer. He opened a private practice in urology in Seattle following his work with Thomas and became an expert in transrectal ultrasonography of the prostate. Ragde was trained in the technique by physicians at the University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark and Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. His mentor in Denmark called him to Copenhagen to see the accurate placement of ultrasound-directed radioactive seeds into a cancerous prostate. Ragde then took the technique back to his practice in Seattle.

He said that bringing new ideas into medicine is not always easy and, in the 1960's, was especially difficult.
"Though the safety of the brachytherapy procedure had been verified by both the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Copenhagen, the end-points were readily discernible, thus pre-empting the need for a larger population study," he said.

"The Food and Drug Administration, however, disagreed, claiming we had no reliable data to justify that contention," he said. "But, as more and more patients sought brachytherapy as a treatment for their prostate cancers, and physicians, in increasing numbers, followed suit by learning the implant technique, the FDA approved the template-directed prostate brachytherapy procedure."

Ragde established the Pacific Northwest Cancer Foundation (which created Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc.) and the Haakon Ragde Foundation for Advanced Cancer Studies. He retired from active practice in 2003 and now researches immunotherapy. He is conducting a study on immunotherapy on advanced prostate cancer patients at the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.

He said he was "greatly honored" to be chosen as ASTRO's 2016 Honorary Member.

For more information about ASTRO's 58th Annual Meeting, visit www.astro.org/AnnualMeeting.

About ASTRO
ASTRO is the premier radiation oncology society in the world, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals that specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. As the leading organization in radiation oncology, the Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology · Biology · Physics (www.redjournal.org), Practical Radiation Oncology (www.practicalradonc.org) and Advances in Radiation Oncology (www.advancesradonc.org); developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers (www.rtanswers.org); and created the Radiation Oncology Institute (www.roinstitute.org), a nonprofit foundation to support research and education efforts around the world that enhance and confirm the critical role of radiation therapy in improving cancer treatment. To learn more about ASTRO, visit www.astro.org.

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