Delivery systems for brachytherapy

Abstract

Brachytherapy is described as the short distance treatment of cancer with a radioactive isotope placed on, in, or near the lesions or tumor to be treated. The main advantage of brachytherapy compared with external beam radiation (EBR) is the improved localized delivery of dose to the target volume of interest, thus normal tissue irradiation is reduced. The precise and targeted nature of brachytherapy provides a number of key benefits for the effective treatment of cancer such as efficacy, minimized risk of side effects, short treatment times, and cost-effectiveness. Brachytherapy devices have yielded promising results in preclinical and clinical studies. However, brachytherapy can only be used in localized and relatively small tumors. Although the introduction of new delivery devices allows the treatment of more complex tumor sites, with wider range of dose rate for improving treatment efficacy and reduction of side effects, a better understanding about the safety, efficacy, and accuracy of these systems is required, and further development of new techniques is warranted. Therefore, this review focuses on the delivery devices for brachytherapy and their application in prostate, breast, brain, and other tumor sites.

Keywords: Brachytherapy; Brain cancer, catheters, seed brachytherapy, and balloon brachytherapy; Breast cancer; High-dose rate (HDR); Low-dose rate (LDR); Prostate cancer.