clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00033631.

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Extending AS duration from 8 weeks to 28 weeks before radiotherapy did not improve outcomes. A lower than expected prostate cancer death rate reduced ability to detect a between-group difference in disease-specific survival. The schedule of 8 weeks of AS before radiotherapy plus 8 weeks of AS during radiotherapy remains a standard of care in intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

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Purpose Intensity modulated brachytherapy (IMBT) is a novel high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR BT) technique which incorporates static or dynamic shielding to increase tumor coverage and/or spare healthy tissues. The purpose of this study is to present a novel delivery system (AIM‐Brachy) design that can enable dynamic‐shield IMBT for prostate cancer. Methods The AIM‐Brachy system dynamically controls the rotation of platinum shields, placed within interstitial catheters, which partially collimate the radiation emitted from an 169Yb source. Conventional HDR BT (10 Ci 192Ir) and IMBT (18 Ci 169Yb) plans were generated for 12 patients using an in‐house column generation‐based optimizer, coupled to a Geant4‐based dose calculation engine, RapidBrachyMC. Treatment plans were normalized to match the same PTV D90 coverage as the clinical plan. Intershield attenuation effects were taken into account. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the dosimetric impact of systematic longitudinal source positioning errors (±1 mm, ±2 mm, and ±3 mm) and rotational errors (±5∘, ±10∘, and ±15∘) on clinically relevant parameters (PTV D90 and urethra D10). Results The platinum shield reduced the dose rate on the shielded side at 1 cm to 18.1% of the dose rate on the unshielded side. For equal PTV D90 coverage, the urethral D10 was reduced by 13.3% ± 4.7%, without change to other plan quality indices (PTV V100, V150, V200, bladder V75, rectum V75, HI, COIN). Delivery times for HDR BT and IMBT were 9.2 ± 1.6 min and 18.6 ± 4.0 min, respectively. In general, the PTV D90 was more sensitive to source positioning errors than rotational errors, while the urethral D10 was more sensitive to rotational errors than source positioning errors. For a typical range of positioning errors (±1 mm, ±5∘), the overall tolerance was <2%. Conclusions The AIM‐Brachy system was proposed to deliver dynamic‐shield IMBT for prostate cancer with the potential to create a low dose tunnel within the urethra. The urethra‐sparing properties are desirable to minimize the occurrence and severity of urethral strictures or, alternatively, to provide a method for dose escalation.

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