Cancer News Around the Web
December 28, 2018
Pain relief procedures before high-dose-rate brachytherapy for non-surgical treatment of cervix cancer
Purpose: Cervical cancer (CC) is a neoplasm with a great potential for prevention, but it is still an important public health problem in most developing countries, leading to a significant number of deaths in young women (15-50 years old). In 2012, there has been a total of 528,000 new diagnosis and 266,000 deaths due to CC worldwide, accounting for 7.5% of all deaths from female cancers [1]...
December 13, 2018
Long-term results of multicatheter interstitial high-dose-rate brachytherapy for accelerated partial-breast irradiation
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to report the long-term results of women treated in one center with accelerated partial-breast irradiation (APBI) with interstitial high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy...
December 11, 2018
Surface dose rate from a flat 106Ru/106Rh episcleral plaque measured with a planar windowless extrapolation chamber and un-laminated EBT3 film
In this work, a planar extrapolation chamber without an entrance window was used to measure surface dose rate to water from a flat 106Ru/106Rh plaque manufactured by Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG...
November 26, 2018
Outcomes of I-125 brachytherapy for uveal melanomas depending on irradiation dose applied to the tumor apex – a single institution study
Purpose: The aim of the study was an evaluation of I-125 brachytherapy patients with uveal melanoma with special consideration for the relationship of the treatment results and the irradiation dose applied to the tumor apex...
November 18, 2018
Vaginal toxicity after high-dose-rate endovaginal brachytherapy: 20 years of results
Purpose: To evaluate vaginal toxicity (primary endpoint) and local control (secondary endpoint) in patients with endometrial cancer who underwent primary surgery and adjuvant high-dose-rate (HDR) endovaginal brachytherapy (BT)...
November 15, 2018
Disadvantageous Socioeconomic Position at Specific Life Periods May Contribute to Prostate Cancer Risk and Aggressiveness
Background: Previous studies on socioeconomic position (SEP) and risk of prostate cancer (PCa) have produced contradictory results. Most measured SEP only once during the individuals' life span. The aim of the study was to identify life course models that describe best the relationship between SEP measured...
November 15, 2018
Cervical Cancer Treatment: Cure Is Possible If Patients Receive Brachytherapy
Patients with non-operable, locally advanced cervical cancer have some of the highest cure rates compared to other advanced cancers, but only if HDR GYN Brachytherapy is a part of their treatment...
November 08, 2018
Combined Low Dose Rate Brachytherapy and External Beam Radiation Therapy for Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer
Introduction: This is a retrospective study conducted to report the tumor control and late toxicity outcomes of patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer undergoing combination external beam radiation therapy and low dose rate brachytherapy (LDR-PB)...
November 01, 2018
Brachytherapy Improves 10-year Overall Survival Compared to Prostatectomy Alone in Young Men (≤60) with Low- and Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer: An NCDB Analysis
Purpose/Objective(s): The treatment of prostate cancer, weather with prostatectomy, radiation therapy, or active surveillance varies based on risk factors including Gleason score (GS), PSA value and T staging. There is controversy regarding the impact of age on treatment modality choice for those with locally advanced prostate cancer despite the current risk stratification...
October 31, 2018
Predicting pubic arch interference in permanent prostate brachytherapy based on the specific parameters derived from nuclear magnetic resonance imaging
Purpose: The aim of this study was to establish a more reliable method to predict pubic arch interference (PAI) before permanent prostate brachytherapy...
October 31, 2018
A systematic review of treating recurrent head and neck cancer: a reintroduction of brachytherapy with or without surgery
Purpose: To review brachytherapy use in recurrent head and neck carcinoma (RHNC) with focus on its efficacy and complication rates...
October 31, 2018
Interstitial brachytherapy in soft tissue sarcoma: a 5 years institutional experience with Cobalt 60- based high-dose-rate brachytherapy system
Purpose: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are comparatively rare heterogeneous group of tumors with different distinct histopathological subtypes. It accounts for 21% of all pediatric non-hematological malignancies, and less than 1% of all adult solid neoplasm [1]. Due to rarity of the incidence and heterogeneous pathological varieties, STS have aggressive biological behavior and high potential for local recurrence after surgery...
October 23, 2018
Patient-reported data confirms efficacy of brachytherapy alone in intermediate risk prostate cancer
Oncology trial RTOG 0232 comparing a combined treatment of external beam therapy and brachytherapy (EBT+B) to transperineal interstitial permanent brachytherapy (B) alone indicate a significantly different clinician and patient-reported late toxicity profile between arms despite similarities in progression-free survival results...
October 22, 2018
Increasing age predicts poor cervical cancer prognosis with subsequent effect on treatment and overall survival
Purpose: Stage and histology are well-established prognostic factors for cervical cancer, but the importance of age has been controversial and a clear role for this factor has not yet been defined. Thus, we aim with this study to evaluate the significance of age as an independent prognostic factor in women with cervical cancer and evaluate the therapeutic consequences and survival outcomes as they relate to this factor...
October 20, 2018
Changes in insurance coverage for cancer patients receiving brachytherapy before and after enactment of the Affordable Care Act
Purpose: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act called for expansion of Medicaid in 2014. As some states elected to expand Medicaid and others did not, the goal of this study was to determine the effect of Medicaid expansion on the insurance status at cancer diagnosis of brachytherapy patients...
October 09, 2018
A Prospective Phase II Trial of Trans-perineal Ultrasound-Guided Brachytherapy for Locally Recurrent Prostate Cancer after External Beam Radiotherapy (NRG Oncology/RTOG -0526)
Purpose: Only retrospective data is available for low dose rate (LDR) salvage prostate brachytherapy for local recurrence after external beam radiotherapy (EBRT). The primary objective of this prospective Phase II trial (NCT00450411) was to evaluate late gastrointestinal and genitourinary adverse events (AEs) after salvage LDR brachytherapy...
October 04, 2018
Permanent prostate brachytherapy monotherapy with I-125 for low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer: Outcomes in 974 patients
Purpose: To report outcomes of patients undergoing low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy and investigate factors associated with biochemical failure and survival...
September 25, 2018
Patient-reported health-related quality of life outcomes after HDR brachytherapy between small (<60 cc) and large (≥60 cc) prostate glands
PURPOSE: Patients with large prostate glands are underrepresented in clinical trials incorporating brachytherapy due to concerns for excessive toxicity. We sought to compare health-related quality of life (HRQOL) outcomes between small (<60 cc) and large (≥60 cc) prostates treated with high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR-B)...
September 20, 2018
Selection of patients who would not require long-term prostate-specific antigen monitoring after low-dose-rate brachytherapy
Purpose: To identify patients at extremely low risk of biochemical recurrence (BCR) of prostate cancer after low-dose-rate brachytherapy (LDR-BT) to determine when prostate-specific antigen (PSA) monitoring can be stopped...
September 15, 2018
Does adjuvant concurrent or sequential chemotherapy increase the radiation-related toxicity of vaginal brachytherapy for endometrial cancer patients?
PURPOSE: To compare radiation toxicity in endometrial cancer patients treated with adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy (VBT) vs. VBT with concurrent chemotherapy (CCT) or sequential chemotherapy (SCT)...
September 11, 2018
Declining brachytherapy utilization for high-risk prostate cancer—Can clinical pathways reverse the trend?
PURPOSE: Although external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) plus a brachytherapy boost (BB) offers a 20% improvement in biochemical progression-free survival compared with dose-escalated EBRT alone for men with intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer, population studies show a concerning decline in BB utilization...
September 11, 2018
Inferring postimplant dose distribution of salvage permanent prostate implant (PPI) after primary PPI on CT images
Purpose: To evaluate the dose distribution of additional radioactive seeds implanted during salvage permanent prostate implant (sPPI) after a primary permanent prostate implant (pPPI)...
September 03, 2018
Does postoperative irradiation improve survival in early-stage endometrial cancer?
Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological cancer in developed countries. Postoperative irradiation has been shown to lower locoregional relapses among high-intermediate risk endometrial cancer patients. In addition, vaginal cuff brachytherapy has demonstrated similar control to external beam radiotherapy but with lower toxicity...
August 31, 2018
Five-year effectiveness of low-dose-rate brachytherapy: comparisons with nomogram predictions in patients with non-metastatic prostate cancer presenting significant control of intra- and periprostatic disease
Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy in patients with localized prostate cancer and to compare the outcome with predictions from Kattan and Partin nomograms at 60 months after seed implantation...
August 29, 2018
Prostate-specific antigen bounce in patients treated before 60 years old by iodine 125 brachytherapy for prostate cancer is frequent and not a prognostic factor
PURPOSE: The only prognostic factor of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) bounce in prostate cancer found in several studies is young age but has never been specifically studied in this subset of patients for long-term results. Bounce characteristics, histological, clinical, and dosimetric data in young patients were analyzed, as well as their impact on toxicity and survival...
August 24, 2018
Multi-institutional evaluation of the reproducibility and the accuracy of the objective breast cosmesis scale
PURPOSE: The aim of the present work is to assess the Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale (OBCS) in a patient cohort that was treated in two hospitals. Their treatment-related cosmetic changes were recorded on nonstandardized photographs...
August 22, 2018
Long-term outcomes analysis of low-dose-rate brachytherapy in clinically T3 high-risk prostate cancer
Purpose: The available data demonstrating that superiority of LDR brachytherapy (LDR-BT) boost in high-risk prostate cancer patients under represents patients with extracapsular extension (T3a) and/or seminal vesicle invasion (T3b) have been limited. We report long-term clinical outcomes data for patients with cT3a/b disease receiving LDR-BT...
August 01, 2018
Cost-effectiveness of prostate boost with high-dose-rate brachytherapy versus intensity-modulated radiation therapy in the treatment of intermediate-high risk prostate cancer
PURPOSE: The recently published ASCENDE-RT randomized clinical trial demonstrated improved biochemical control, albeit with increased toxicity, for a prostate boost with brachytherapy versus external beam radiation therapy alone in patients with intermediate-high risk prostate cancer...
July 26, 2018
High-volume providers and brachytherapy practice: A Medicare provider utilization and payment analysis
PURPOSE: Brachytherapy is an important component of the treatment of gynecologic and prostate
cancers, with data supporting its impact on clinical outcomes. Prior data have suggested that brachytherapy tends to be focused at high-volume centers. Medicare reimbursement data can provide an understanding of the distribution of brachytherapy cases among billing providers...
July 23, 2018
Treatment outcomes of high-dose-rate intracavitary brachytherapy for cervical cancer: a comparison of Ir-192 versus Co-60 sources
Objective: To determine and compare treatment outcomes between cobalt-60 (Co-60) and iridium-192 (Ir-192) high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy in stage IB2–IIIB cervical cancer patients at Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital, Navamindrahiraj University...
July 18, 2018
High-dose-rate interstitial brachytherapy as monotherapy in one fraction of 20.5 Gy for the treatment of localized prostate cancer: Toxicity and 6-year biochemical results
Purpose: To evaluate acute and late genitourinary toxicity, the gastrointestinal toxicity, and the long-term biochemical control after high-dose-rate (HDR) monotherapy in one fraction (20.5 Gy)...
June 30, 2018
Case report of a dose-volume histogram analysis of rib fracture after accelerated partial breast irradiation: interim analysis of a Japanese prospective multi-institutional feasibility study
We initiated the first multi-institutional prospective study of accelerated partial breast irradiation for early breast cancer in Japan. Our early clinical results showed that the treatment methods were technically reproducible between institutions and showed excellent disease control at a median follow-up of 26 months in our previous report...
June 30, 2018
ENT COBRA ONTOLOGY: the covariates classification system proposed by the Head & Neck and Skin GEC-ESTRO Working Group for interdisciplinary standardized data collection in head and neck patient cohorts treated with interventional radiotherapy
Purpose: Clinical data collecting is expensive in terms of time and human resources. Data can be collected in different ways; therefore, performing multicentric research based on previously stored data is often difficult. The primary objective of the ENT COBRA (COnsortium for BRachytherapy data Analysis) ontology is to define a specific terminological system to standardized data collection for head and neck (H&N) cancer patients treated with interventional radiotherapy...
June 30, 2018
Hypofractionated external beam radiation therapy in combination with HDR boost for localized prostate cancer: patient reported quality of life outcomes
Purpose: There is limited data to support the use of hypofractionated external beam radiation (HypoF) in combination with high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR). We report our quality of life (QOL) outcomes when treating intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer patients with external beam radiation (EBRT) plus HDR...
June 30, 2018
UK & Ireland Prostate Brachytherapy Practice Survey 2014-2016
Purpose: To document the current prostate brachytherapy practice across the UK and Ireland and compare with previously published audit results...
June 30, 2018
Low-dose-rate brachytherapy for prostate cancer in renal transplant recipients
Purpose: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common malignancy among men and one of the most common neoplasms affecting renal transplant recipients (RTRs). The available treatments for localized PCa among the general population (GP), surgery and external beam radiotherapy, carry a risk of damage to the transplanted kidney, the ureters, and the bladder and therefore tend to be avoided by most groups...
June 22, 2018
Nationwide Japanese Prostate Cancer Outcome Study of Permanent Iodine-125 Seed Implantation (J-POPS): first analysis on survival
Background: Investigating oncological outcomes in patients registered in the Japanese Prostate Cancer Outcome Study of Permanent Iodine-125 Seed Implantation (J-POPS) in terms of biochemical relapse-free survival (bRFS) by the Phoenix and the newly developed J-POPS definitions, exploration of predictive factors for bRFS, and preliminary verification of pitfalls of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure definitions...
June 09, 2018
Second primary malignancies after high-dose-rate 60Co photon or 252Cf neutron brachytherapy in conjunction with external-beam radiotherapy for endometrial cancer
Purpose: Second primary malignancies (SPMs) may occur in organs after radiotherapy (RT). This study aimed to determine the rate and distribution of SPMs for photon- or neutron-emitting radiotherapy sources for patients treated for primary endometrial cancer...
May 30, 2018
Radiotherapy utilization in developing countries: An IAEA study
Background: The planning of national radiotherapy (RT) services requires a thorough knowledge of the country's cancer epidemiology profile, the radiotherapy utilization (RTU) rates and a future projection of these data. Previous studies have established RTU rates in high-income countries...
May 25, 2018
Comparison of spinal and general anesthesia approaches for MRI-guided brachytherapy for cervical cancer
Purpose: To evaluate the impact of general versus spinal anesthesia on postprocedure narcotic use and of extradepartmental planning MRI on treatment time in high-dose-rate brachytherapy for cervical cancer...
May 24, 2018
Outcomes for Cervical Cancer Patients Treated With Radiation in High-Volume and Low-Volume Hospitals
Purpose: To investigate the effects of different hospital patient loads on the standard of care and treatment outcomes of patients with cervical cancer treated primarily with radiation therapy and to identify factors that may contribute to survival differences among hospitals...
May 18, 2018
Evaluation of vascular changes with optical coherence tomography angiography after ruthenium-106 brachytherapy of circumscribed choroidal hemangioma
Purpose: To describe the vascular changes of circumscribed choroidal hemangioma (CCH) after ruthenium-106 brachytherapy using optical coherence tomography angiography (angio-OCT)...
May 08, 2018
The role of salvage brachytherapy for local relapse after external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer amongst men. For localized disease, there currently exist several reliable treatment modalities including surgery, radiotherapy and brachytherapy. Our growing understanding of this disease indicates that local control plays a very important role in prevention of subsequent dissemination...
May 01, 2018
The European Society of Gynaecological Oncology/European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology/European Society of Pathology guidelines for the management of patients with cervical cancer
Background: Despite significant advances in the screening, detection, and treatment of preinvasive cervical lesions, invasive cervical cancer is the fifth most common cancer in European women. There are large disparities in Europe and worldwide in the incidence, management, and mortality of cervical cancer...
April 30, 2018
Visual outcome after posterior uveal melanoma episcleral brachytherapy including radiobiological doses
Purpose: Uveal melanoma is the most frequent primary malignant intraocular tumor occurring in adults, with an annual age-adjusted incidence of 5.1 per million [1]. Approximately, 90% of all uveal melanomas’ develops in the choroid, 7% in the ciliary body, and 3% in the iris [1]. In the past, uveal melanoma was treated with enucleation, but plaque brachytherapy...
April 30, 2018
Ruthenium brachytherapy for intraocular growth of a conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma: a case report
Abstract: The aim of this study is to report the use of ruthenium brachytherapy as an adjunctive treatment in the management of an intraocular extension of the conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). In 2013, a 73-year-old man presented with a tumor blocking the angle and infiltrating corneal endothelium. The patient was treated with iridectomy, and after one month, ruthenium brachytherapy...
April 30, 2018
A single institution analysis of low-dose-rate brachytherapy: 5-year reported survival and late toxicity outcomes
Purpose: Low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy has been used in Australia since 1998 as curative treatment, either as a boost to external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or monotherapy in the management of non-metastatic prostate cancer. More recently, the use of Iodine-125 for permanent LDR brachytherapy implants...
April 22, 2018
Quality-of-life results for accelerated partial breast irradiation with interstitial brachytherapy versus whole-breast irradiation in early breast cancer after breast-conserving surgery (GEC-ESTRO): 5-year results of a randomised, phase 3 trial
Background: Previous results from the GEC-ESTRO trial showed that accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) using multicatheter brachytherapy in the treatment of early breast cancer after breast-conserving surgery was non-inferior to whole-breast irradiation in terms of local control and overall survival. Here, we present 5-year results of patient-reported quality of life...
April 21, 2018
ESTRO-ACROP guideline: Interstitial multi-catheter breast brachytherapy as Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation alone or as boost – GEC-ESTRO Breast Cancer Working Group practical recommendations
Purpose: This consensus statement from the Breast Cancer Working Group of Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie of European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (GEC-ESTRO) aims at generating practical guidelines for multi-catheter image-guided brachytherapy in the conservative management of breast cancer patients used for either Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI) or for a breast boost...
April 21, 2018
Brachytherapy proves safe for cervical cancer
Ureteral stricture - a narrowing of the tube that takes urine from the kidneys to the bladder - is a rare but potentially serious complication following radiation treatment for cervical cancer. The stricture can lead to kidney damage and sometimes life-threatening infections...
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GEC-ESTRO Brachytherapy Guidelines:
ABS Brachytherapy Guidelines and Consensus Statements:
