Brachytherapy in the treatment of breast cancer

Abstract

Brachytherapy is an important radio-therapeutic modality for a variety of malignancies, including prostate cancer, cervix cancer, breast cancer, vagina cancer, endometrium cancer, head and neck cancer, and many more. This technique has been shown to be an effective and safe non-pharmaceutical treatment with fewer serious complications and better outcome than other treatments for breast cancer. Every year, hundreds of thousands of patients around the world benefit from brachytherapy, which reliably delivers a relatively higher radiation dose to the intended target. However, the follow-up time, patient eligibility criteria, treatment strategy, and radiation doses used in published studies are somewhat inconsistent, making it difficult to strictly compare and evaluate the performance of the treatment. More rigorous studies are required to confirm the safety of this technique and to make outcome data more comparable. In this review, we focus on recent advances in breast brachytherapy techniques and provide an overview of outcomes, cosmetic outcome, toxicity, complications, and limitations of brachytherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. We also summarize the clinical outcomes and toxicity results in patients receiving or not receiving brachytherapy.

Ultrasound-guided implantation of radioactive 125I seed in radioiodine refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma

“…Interstitial permanent 125 I seed implantation, as a highly conformal radiotherapy modality that, delivers higher radiation doses to target areas and even to tumors closely surrounded by vital structures while sparing surrounding normal tissues, is widely applicable, almost free from the limitation of lesion location and volume, and it has been used in the treatment of unresectable malignant tumors of various organs [38][39][40]. It is particularly suitable for F During the 9th month of follow-up, CEUS indicated partial re-hyper-enhancement of No.…”

“…Radiofrequency ablation and microwave ablation have certain requirements on lesion sites owing to heat conduction and thermal damage during operation [ 32 , 33 ]. Interstitial permanent 125 I seed implantation, as a highly conformal radiotherapy modality that, delivers higher radiation doses to target areas and even to tumors closely surrounded by vital structures while sparing surrounding normal tissues, is widely applicable, almost free from the limitation of lesion location and volume, and it has been used in the treatment of unresectable malignant tumors of various organs [ 38 – 40 ]. It is particularly suitable for the treatment of malignant tumors of the head and neck owing to its advantages of low energy, sustained accumulated radiation, and homogenous dose distribution in the target area [ 17 , 41 ].…”

Ultrasound-guided implantation of radioactive 125 I seed in radioiodine refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma

“…Radiofrequency ablation and microwave ablation have certain requirements on lesion site due to the heat conduction and thermal damage during operation [33,34]. Interstitial permanent 125 I seed implantation, as a highly conformal radiotherapy modality, delivering higher radiation doses to target areas while sparing surrounding normal tissue, even to tumors closely surrounded by vital structures, is widely applicable, almost free from the limitation of lesion location and volume, and it has been used in the treatment of unresectable malignant tumors of various organs [39][40][41]. It is especially suitable for the treatment of head and neck malignant tumors due to its advantages of low energy, sustained accumulated radiation, and homogenous dose distribution in the target area [17,42].…”

Experimental Models as Refined Translational Tools for Breast Cancer Research

“…Nowadays, there are several therapeutic options available for breast cancer, which are possibly divided into two main categories: local treatments and systemic treatments. Local treatments allow minimizing the effect over healthy tissues, and they include [20][21][22][23] tumor surgery (which is considered the primary treatment for early stage breast cancer) and radiation therapy [24][25][26]. Systemic treatments are those in which the administered drugs will travel through the blood stream, reaching cells all over the body [21].…”