Interstitial Brachytherapy

Written by the foremost experts in the field, this volume is a comprehensive text and practical reference on contemporary brachytherapy. The book provides detailed, site-specific information on applications and techniques of brachytherapy in the head and neck, central nervous system, breast, thorax, gastrointestinal tract, and genitourinary tract, as well as on gynecologic brachytherapy, low dose rate and high dose rate sarcoma brachytherapy, vascular brachytherapy, and pediatric applications. The book thoroughly describes and compares the four major techniques used in brachytherapy—intracavity, interstitial, surface-dose or mold therapy, and transluminal. Chapters detail particular techniques that are appropriate in specific clinical situations.

This book provides a comprehensive insight into this special form of image-guided interventional therapy and its indications. It begins by introducing the fundamental principles of radiotherapy, the most up-to-date guidelines and the interdisciplinary aspects of the technique and then expands to more practical aspects such as therapy planning, indications and the use of the technique for certain tumor types, including liver metastases, rare tumors, cerebral malignancies and prostate tumors. Written and edited by pioneers in this technique, the chapter’s outline results and numerous illustrated case studies from the daily routine of daily clinical practice providing an insightful guidance to this relatively new but growing method. This is an indispensable guide for oncologists, radiation therapists and radiologists, but also general practitioners and all other specialties, which have an oncological focus.

This volume is the first truly international text to take the practitioner from the history, the physical basis, and the rationale of brachytherapy through to the techniques, the results, and the management of complications. It is also the first truly comprehensive and complete textbook of brachytherapy. The chapters on the physics of brachytherapy and the technical planning of internal and surface radiotherapy are designed to enhance the practitioner’s knowledge base and capabilities in this demanding specialty field. Disease site-specific chapters cover a wide range of applications, including ocular tumors, soft tissue sarcomas, cancers of the head and neck, skin, breast, lung, esophagus, and prostate, and gynecologic and anorectal malignancies. Each chapter incorporates the American and European guidelines and the text has been written from both perspectives by many of the most noted global experts in the field. A concluding chapter is devoted to brachytherapy quality assurance.

With contributions by numerous experts