Stosstherapy: A fresh look at some principles of therapy — especially chemotherapy

Stosstherapy is the treatment of disease by a single or short‐term, large and sometimes massive, dose of a therapeutic agent. It was most commonly used after the discovery of sulphonamides and penicillin, but has been revived with the recent use of single‐dose chemotherapy. It is effective in many disorders, and these are documented, together with the dosage ranges which can be used. Stosstherapy has a rational basis, is safe, effective, has many advantages compared with long‐term therapy, and could be used much more frequently. Reasons are given why stosstherapy conforms with accepted principles of chemotherapy, but it is given for a much shorter period because the time for an infection to be overcome may be much shorter than has been assumed. It is postulated that the duration of chemotherapy could be shortened in many diseases.