Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Updated brachytherapy guidelines offered

|
|
 
  
Published: Nov. 3, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Advertisement

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists have issued new guidelines for analyzing the radiation dose delivered to the prostate and nearby organs in brachytherapy procedures.

Brachytherapy is a cancer treatment that involves placing radioactive sources, such as pellets, within or close to a tumor. The new guidelines, co-authored by Professor Yan Yu, director of medical physics at Thomas Jefferson University, call for the radiation dose to be carefully analyzed using post-implant computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging and uniformly documented in every patient.

The task group led by Yu issued specific recommendations on the timing, imaging techniques, dose planning criteria and dose evaluation parameters that should be followed in documenting each brachytherapy treatment.

"Sophisticated brachytherapy techniques such as real-time planning, image-guided robotic implantation and dynamic dose verification are either here or imminent" and require a higher level of standardization, which is what the task group was commissioned to address, Yu said.

The recommendations are reported in the journal Medical Physics.

Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
The making of the Oscars The Chicago Auto Show 2011: The year in space
Mercedes-Benz fashion week In New York Tu Bishvat Migron settlement The Tibetan Moniam Festival in China
Additional Science News Stories
1 of 21
President Obama Signs Smuggling Prevention Act at White House
View Caption
fark
Photoshop this urban underground dweller
Kim Jong Un Dead. I repeat - Un Dead
Nothing is more romantic on Valentine's Day than taking your lover on a tour of New York's sewers...
Man arrested for writing 'bomb' on some toilet paper. "His family says the word 'bomb' is often...
Now that gay marriage is legal in California, the state's Health Department thought it was necessary...
Scientists discover a drug designed to fight cancer reverses Alzheimer's in mice. Still no cure...