Historical Article
Boyce Worthley, Anti-Cancer Foundation of the Universities of South Australia
(Prepared by Ralph Nicholls with contributions from Don Haskard and John Tooze)
Boyce Worthley BSc (Hons), MSc., BA (Hons), FAIP, FRACR (Hon) FACPSEM
Boyce grew up in the Adelaide suburb of Black Forest.He was educated at Adelaide High School, Adelaide Teachers’ College and the University of Adelaide, attaining first class honours in Physics, then a Master of Science, and later taking first class honours in Philosophy.
After a brief appointment as a teacher in South Australia and, as a physicist at the then Commonwealth X-ray and Radium Laboratory in Melbourne, Boyce was in 1942 appointed Physicist to the University of Adelaide’s Anti-Cancer Campaign Committee (later the Anti-Cancer Foundation of the Universities of South Australia).
His early work included dose calibration of Adelaide’s therapy X-ray machines and, in a laboratory in the university’s old administration building, extraction of radon gas from a radium source and its encapsulation in gold needles for implanting in tumours. He set up South Australia’s first radiation protection and monitoring service.
From 1949 Boyce recruited other physicists. Under his leadership, this ACF Physics Section (by then located in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and comprising up to five professional staff and occasional postgraduate students) developed a comprehensive medical physics role in cancer treatment.
Before nuclear medicine became a specialty of its own, they also pioneered work in the diagnostic use of radioisotopes, designing and constructing systems to scan organs including thyroid and brain.
Boyce developed techniques for detecting fallout and other radioactivity in air and water samples and in the human body, leading to the design and building of an experimental whole-body monitor and then, in 1961, the installation of Australia’s first fully-shielded whole-body scanning system for clinical research and the measurement of body contamination.
Boyce had an abiding interest in the mathematical modelling of radiation’s biological effects. In the quest for rationalisation of radiotherapy dosage protocols, he analysed cell-survival data and designed a clinically useful slide-rule for dose-time-fractionation comparison.
Radiation dosimetry standards and the accurate computation of dose form the scientific basis for radiotherapy of cancer. And it is in these fundamental areas that much of Boyce’s most important work was done. With his colleagues in the 1950s, he constructed a primary standard free-air-chamber and electrometer system of advanced design. Some of these systems have served as unofficial Australian standards.Primary and secondary dosimetry equipment and techniques were further developed to cover the full range of radiotherapy from superficial X-rays through to megavoltage photons and electrons.
One of Boyce’s strengths was his brilliant ability to analyse measured data and derive empirical formulae for the rapid computation of dose in the many non-standard situations of clinical radiotherapy.In 1952, the Adelaide group constructed their improved version of the Wheatley optical integrator, an analogue computer of scatter radiation, and published their results as an Acta Radiologica Supplement.
Boyce’s involvement in digital computing began in 1965 with his supervision of a computer science PhD student.Over the next decade, programs based on his formulae were developed in the department for a comprehensive range of X-ray and electron beam radiotherapy and internal brachytherapy, with extension to three-dimensional planning.
During his career Boyce published over forty papers in Australian and international peer-reviewed journals.
Boyce Worthley actively promoted the profession of physical sciences in medicine.He was one of the founders of the Hospital Physicists’ Association, Australian Regional Group in 1961, and its successor the Australasian College of Physical Scientists in Medicine in 1977.He served vigorously on Council and Branch committees in many offices, notably at various times as Branch Chairman, Secretary, Honorary Registrar and Chairman of the Board of Examiners. He was elected a Fellow of the College in 1982 and, then in 1985 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the profession, Boyce was made the College’s first Life Member. Also, that year, the College established in his honour the Boyce Worthley Prize, to be awarded annually to a younger Member or Associate for significant contribution to the profession.
Boyce lived a well-rounded life. He was a loving family man, generous and supportive to his wife Ruth and their two sons and four daughters.We all knew him to have an ever-present sense of humour.He enjoyed many spare-time activities and hobbies; he read widely and voraciously; he enjoyed the theatre; he was an entertaining conversationalist. Over the years he enthusiastically played a range of vigorous sports: from Australian Rules football through to his last outdoor passion, golf.Although an exceptionally gifted man, Boyce was modest, appreciative of other people and always aware of the responsibility to use his talents well. A great many people count it a privilege to have known Boyce Worthley and to have had their lives influenced by him.
Ralph Nicholls, 30 November 2018
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The Worthley Free-In-Air Ionisation Chamber
(Click on photographs to enlarge)
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Boyce Worthley – selected publications
Boyce Worthley, John Tooze, Joan Crane and Robert M. Fry, Dosage estimation in radiotherapy and the Wheatley integrator. Acta Radiologica Supplementum 128 (1955).
B. Worthley, A.M. Thompson and M.J. Tooze,Precision charge comparison for the standardization of x-ray dosemeters.Australian Journal of Applied Science, Vol.8, 261-270 (1957).
Boyce Worthley and John Tooze, The standardization of Victoreen condenser R-meters. American Journal of Roentgenology, Vol.79, No.1, 151-157 (1958).
Boyce Worthley and John Tooze, Primary and secondary standards of Roentgen radiation in the HVL range 1.6mm Al – 15mm Cu. Acta Radiologica. Volume 43, 1-12 (1959).
Boyce Worthley, A code of practice for megavoltage dosimetry.Australasian Newsletter of Medical Physics, Issue No.21, 9-10 (1964).
Boyce Worthley, Primary standards for megavoltage dosimetry. Australasian Newsletter of Medical Physics, Issue No.25, 9-11 (1965).
B.W. Worthley and R.E.M. Cooper, Computer-based external beam radiotherapy planning, I, Empirical formulae for calculation of depth-dose.Physics in Medicine and Biology, Vol.12, No.2, 229-240 (1967).
R.E.M. Cooper and B.W. Worthley, Computer-based external beam radiotherapy planning, II, Practical applications. Physics in Medicine and Biology, Vol.12, No.2, 241-249 (1967).
B.W. Worthley, Dosage prescription in radiotherapy using a slide-rule based on dose-time-fractionation relationships.Australasian Radiology,Vol.XII, No.2, 160-170 (1968).
Boyce Worthley, High speed planning for external beam therapy. Selected Papers of XIIth International Congress of Radiology, Tokyo, Japan, October 6-11, 1969 (1970).
B.W. Worthley and R.L. Nicholls, X-ray therapy planning in three dimensions by computer. Australasian Radiology, Vol.XV, No.4, 372-381 (1971).
B.W. Worthley and R.L. Nicholls, Computer evaluation of Sievert’s integral by recursive formula. Physics in Medicine and Biology, Vol.17, No.6, 854-857 (1972).
B.W. Worthley, D.L. Haskard and M.J. Tooze, Whole skin electron beam rotation therapy. Australasian Physical Sciences in Medicine, Vol.2, No.1, 47-58 (1979).
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