Radiotherapy in Practice ─ Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy remains an important component of radical radiation therapy in the modern management of cancer. Widespread adoption of remote afterloading now enables brachytherapy to be delivered with minimum exposure to staff and other patients. Technical advances in imaging and computing power have improved the precision of implantation and complex dosimetry can now be achieved in routine practice. The advantages of direct placement of the radiation source into the area to be treated, overcoming the problems of patient and organ movement, together with the dosimetric advantages inherent in brachytherapy, will ensure that modern brachytheraoy continues to provide the optimal means of delivering accurate high does radiation therapy for many patients.

Fully updated for the second edition, this book provides practical guidance on the use of brachytherapy. Each chapter gives the reader a solid background in the physics and dosimetry of the technique, followed by practical information on its use in common disease sites. Whilst low, medium, and high dose rate techniques are covered, emphasis is placed on high dose rate afterloading techniques which are likely to replace most other forms of brachytherapy in the future.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

Radiotherapy remains the major non-surgical treatment modality for the management of malignant disease. It is based on the application of the principles of applied physics, radiobiology, and tumour biology to clinical practice. Each volume in this series takes the reader through the basic principles of the use of ionising radiation and then develops this by individual sites. This series of practical handbooks are aimed at physicians both training and practising in radiotherapy, as well as medical physicists, dosimetrists, radiographers and senior nurses.

Peter Hoskin qualified at the Royal Free Hospital and, after junior posts in general medicine in London, trained in clinical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He currently has a busy clinical practice focusing on urological and gynaecological malignancies and lymphomas. He also directs a research programme through UCL developing and evaluating functional imaging in oncological practice. Professor Hoskin is series editor of the OUP series, Radiotherapy in Practice.

Dr Catherine Coyle is a graduate of Queen's University Belfast. She trained in clinical oncology at Christie Hospital, Manchester, UK, and Cookridge Hospital, Leeds, UK, with 6 months as Senior Resident in the Department of Brachytherapy at Institut Gustav Roussey, Villejuif, Paris. She is now a Consultant in Clinical Oncology at St James Institute of Oncology, Leeds, UK, with a site specialist interest in head and neck and urological cancers. She is co-organiser and co-host of the Royal College of Radiologists UK-supported annual brachytherapy course.