Claude Regaud

Claude Regaud attended the University of Lyon, becoming Interne in 1891, doctor of medicine 1897. From 1901 to 1913 he was agrégé for anatomy and histology, from 1913 professor at the Institut Pasteur and director of the radiophysiological laboratory at the radium institute at the University of Paris. Regaud’s research during the years 1895-1912 concerned normal and experimental histology, his later research radio physiology and radium therapy of cancer. Regaud was elected member of the Académie de Médecine in 1924.

In the early days of radiation therapy, it was generally held, especially by the German school, that the biggest dose (tolerated), given as fast as possible, was the best treatment. During the period, roughly 1920 to 1930, Claude Regaud argued that the differential effect of x rays on cancer and normal tissues could be best obtained by giving the treatment slowly. For example, healing was very much better when skin cancer was treated over a period of a week than in one day.

In Paris the Avenue CLAUDE REGAUD in the XIIIe Arrondissement is named in his honour.

• Les vaisseaux lymphatiques du testicule et les faux endothéliums de la surface des tubes séminifères. Lyon, 1897.
• Les terminaisons nerveuses.
  With Maurice Favre (1876-1955). Lyon and Paris, 1904.
• Fondements physiologiques et techniques de la rediothérapie des cancers.
  Lyon and Paris, 1925.
• Discordance des effets des rayons X, d’une part dans la peau, d’autre part dans le testicule, par le fractionnement de la dose: diminution de l’efficacité dans la peau, maintien de l’efficacité dans le testicule.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances et mémoires la Société de biologie, Paris, 1927, 97: 431-434. Dose fractionation.
• Effets histo-physiologiques des rayons de Roentgen et de Becquerel-Curie sur les tissues adultes normaux des animaux supérieurs.
  With Antoine Marcellin Lacassagne (1884-1971). Lyon and Paris, 1927.
• Quels moyens avons-nous d’éviter la mort par le cancer. Lyon and Paris, 1928.
• Radiophysiologie et radiothérapie.
  Bulletin de l’Institut du radium de Parsis et de la Fondation Curie, Paris, 2 volumes, Paris, 1928.
• Considérations sur la radiothérapie des cancers cervico-uterins, d’après l’experience et les résultats acquis à l’Institut du Radium de Paris.
  Radiophysiologie et Radiothérapie, 1933-1939, 3: 155-170.
  The Paris method of radium treatment of cancer of the uterus was devised by Regaud.