Interstitial high‐dose‐rate brachytherapy combined with cervical dissection on head and neck cancer

Abstract

These results suggest that I-HDR can be recommended in selected patients with first presentation lesions, local recurrences, or second primary carcinomas, even with a previous course of EBRT, but further studies are eagerly awaited to delineate the optimum schedule for this combination-treatment modality.

Combination of surgical resection and HDR-brachytherapy in patients with recurrent or advanced head and neck carcinomas

“…Kolotas et al (2007) have also treated recurrent tumours by brachytherapy with and without surgery and achieved similar local survival rates of 31% after 2 years. However, the result are not comparable with another report of combined surgical resection and HDR-BT, Pellizzon et al (2005) since in their cohort, most patients had primary tumors and survival rates of primary and recurrent tumours were not separated. If one considers that most of our patients 290 Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery would have been otherwise treated in a palliative manner only, the survival curve is also superior to the survival of palliatively and nonsurgically curatively treated patients in the DÖ SAK register published by Howaldt et al (2000).…”

“…Brachytherapy fulfils the complementary aims of delivering sufficient dosage for tumour cell kill to a well defined area while sparing normal adjacent structures. In this way, it provides an effective technique for re-treatment of patients with recurrent tumours as a salvage modality (Hepel et al, 2005) and also in combined modality settings (Shasha et al, 1998;Pellizzon et al, 2005).…”

American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and American College of Radiology (ACR) Practice Guideline for the Performance of High-Dose-Rate Brachytherapy

“…Tumors in the head and neck affect important structures; therefore, careful attention to dose principles that preserve tissue function are needed, particularly, multifraction regimens that avoid large doses per fraction (63)(64)(65)(66). Computer-based dose optimization, advances in radiation safety, and improved nursing care are important reasons why LDR brachytherapy is being supplanted by HDR brachytherapy (67)(68)(69)(70)(71)(72)(73)(74)(75). Interstitial, intracavitary, surface applications (plesiotherapy), and intraoperative techniques are all used in head and neck HDR brachytherapy.…”

Interaction of 2-Gy Equivalent Dose and Margin Status in Perioperative High-Dose-Rate Brachytherapy

“…Perioperative high-dose-rate brachytherapy is, in essence, an accelerated hypofractionated treatment regimen with daily doses ranging from 5 to 10 Gy (1)(2)(3)(4).…”