Recent developments in brachytherapy source dosimetry

rachytherapy, the treatment of cancer patients by placing sealed radioactive elements at the short distances relative to the tumor, was born soon after Henri Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity in Paris (1896) and Marie Curie’s discovery of radium (1898). However, within the past several years there have been great improvements in the technical aspect of the brachytherapy procedures (Blasko and Grimm 1993, Blasko et al. 1995, Grimm et al. 1994, 2001), and better understanding in the radiobiological aspect of low dose rate radiation (Brenner and Hall 1991, Orton 1993) have helped us to advance in this treatment modality. Moreover, development of the protocols regarding the dosimetric characterization of the brachytherapy sources (Nath et al. 1995, Williamson et al. 1998) and development of treatment-planning systems, which could incorporate the CT, MRI and Ultrasound images for the 3D dose calculations (Schoeppel et al. 1993, Ling et al. 1987), have further improved this field. These advancements have lead to the clinical results, which are superior or at least comparable to the other treatment modalities for cancer patients. In this presentation the advancement of the brachytherapy source dosimetry is being reviewed. Reviewing the brachytherapy data prior to 1995 indicates a large variation of the dosimetric characteristics of sources, due to the inconsistency in technique of the dosimetry or use of various ABSTRACT