Updated brachytherapy guidelines offered

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.