Quon and Harrison have performed a considerable service to patients with head and neck cancers by reminding the oncology community that a state-of-the-art treatment team must include state-of-the-art brachytherapy. A fundamental adage in radiotherapy is "If you don’t hit it, you can’t cure it." Modern tools of external-beam radiotherapy, such as intensity-modulated radiation therapy, allow us t...

BACKGROUND Radiotherapy (RT), short-course androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), and brachytherapy in various combinations are treatment options for patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer (PC), but the question of which combination if any is necessary to minimize PC-specific mortality (PCSM) risk in patients with favorable or unfavorable intermediate-risk PC is unknown. The authors asses...

OBJECTIVES Some patients are medically unfit for or averse to undergoing a brachytherapy boost as part of cervical cancer radiotherapy. In order to be able to definitively treat these patients, we assessed whether we could achieve a boost plan that would mimic our brachytherapy plans using external beam radiotherapy. METHODS High dose rate brachytherapy plans of 20 patients with stage IIB cer...

PURPOSE Several prior studies have suggested that brachytherapy utilization has markedly decreased, coinciding with the recent increased utilization of intensity modulated radiation therapy, as well as an increase in urologist-owned centers. We sought to investigate the brachytherapy utilization in a large, hospital-based registry. MATERIAL AND METHODS Men with prostate cancer diagnosed betwe...

Context: In absence of prospective randomized trials determining the optimal management of localized prostate cancer remains undefined. Objective: To develop and disseminate an update on outcome of different treatment modalities, recommendations and guidelines of transperineal prostate brachytherapy. Evidence acquisition: In the past decade, the average number of brachytherapy patients per cent...

BACKGROUND Low-dose rate brachytherapy is a well established treatment modality of oral cancer. Data about high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy are still sparse with various fractionation schedules and heterogeneous results. AIM The aim of our retrospective study was to evaluate the results of HDR brachytherapy with doses of 3 Gy twice daily. PATIENTS AND METHODS Twenty patients with squamous...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy of a single implant with two fractions plus external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) for hormone-naïve prostate cancer in comparison with radical prostatectomy. Of 150 patients with localized prostate cancer (T1c-T2c), 59 underwent HDR brachytherapy plus EBRT, and 91 received radical prostatectomy. ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the spectrum of pathophysiology underlying the lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) persisting for > or = 6 months after brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS A database of men from two practice settings was searched for men who developed LUTS persisting for > or = 6 months after completing brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. Patient...

High dose rate (HDR) endobronchial brachytherapy is a palliative treatment for symptomatic airway obstruction by malignant tumours. We report a novel use of HDR brachytherapy for treating non-malignant bronchial obstruction. The patient had a metal stent placed in a reconstructed airway after a bronchial tear to ensure patency. Granulation tissue formation in and around the stent caused symptom...

Laparoscopic approaches to gynecological surgery have been developed by an elite group of highly skilled surgeons. As these procedures become more prevalent in the general gynecological approach to disease and the general gynecologist's approach to treatment, the complication rate for these procedures is likely to increase. In an effort to assist in avoiding these complications, guidelines for ...