High dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT) in locally advanced oesophageal cancer. Clinic response and survival related to biological equivalent dose (BED)

Abstract

Tumour response increases (complete and partial) when BED on HDR-BT is increased, regardless of the fraction employed. A BED higher than 28 Gy yields a significant increase of mean survival and GS at 5 years (p=0.016).

A quality assurance tool for high‐dose‐rate brachytherapy

“…High-dose-rate ͑HDR͒ brachytherapy is used to treat a number of diseases including cancers of the prostate, 1 cervix, 2 head and neck, 3 esophagus, 4 and breast. 5 The success of a treatment is strongly dependent on accurate knowledge of the source strength, dwell positions, and dwell times.…”

The Role of Brachytherapy Alone and in Combined Treatment of Esophageal Cancer—A Review

“…In non-operative cases, attempts to improve treatment results were made by escalating the dose using brachytherapy (Table 2). The most frequently used radiotherapy doses were in the range of 40-50 Gy, conventionally fractionated [33][34][35][36][37], although in some studies, the dose administered using EBRT was as high as 60 Gy [38][39][40][41]. The dose from brachytherapy ranged from 10 Gy to 24 Gy hypofractionated in the range of 5-10 Gy/fraction [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41].…”

Why is a very easy, useful, old technique underused? An overview of esophageal brachytherapy – interventional radiotherapy

“…EBT is a very effective treatment in the palliation of dysphagia; a randomized trial has demonstrated better results than stent placement, providing level 1 evidence [ 20 ]. Predicted DFS values based on radiation dose estimated with meta-regression models, indicate that the results are associated with dose, showing better results for 7 Gy × 3 fractions [ 57 , 58 ].…”