Remote radioactive seed-loading device for permanent brachytherapy of oral cancer with Au-198 grains

This paper presents a remote radioactive seed-loading device for permanent brachytherapy of oral cancer with Au-198 grains to reduce the exposure dose to the doctors. Permanent brachytherapy is a treatment which involve implanting of radioactive Au-198 grains, and requires neither long-term needle insertion nor diet-restriction. This is its advantage over temporary brachytherapy. However, the doctors that perform this therapy are exposed to radiation during the treatment procedures. This hinders permanent brachytherapy from being commonly used. The developed device shoots an Au grain from a distant position using air pressure and loads it onto the applicator. This can reduce the exposure dose of the doctors compared with that of the traditional procedure because the doctors are able to stay as far away from the radioactive seeds as possible. We conducted experiments of motion simulation of the proposed and traditional treatment procedures, and compared the exposed doses. The device can reduce the exposed dose by 62% on average.