Publications by authors named "B M A Pieters"
"Erratum to keeping your best options open with AI-based treatment planning in prostate and cervix brachytherapy" [Brachytherapy Volume 23, ISSUE 2, P188-198, March 2024].
Brachytherapy
January 2025
Radiobiology and modelling in Brachytherapy: A review inspired by the ESTRO Brachytherapy pre-meeting course.
Clin Transl Radiat Oncol
January 2025
Brachytherapy (BT) plays a key role in cancer treatment by delivering a high dose to a small volume over a short time. The use of BT is currently validated in a wide range of cancers such as cervical, prostate and breast cancers while being a favourable choice for organ preservation, such as in penile or rectal cancer, or in the setting of reirradiation. Consideration of the radiobiology of BT is integral to the choices made around dose and fractionation and combination with other techniques such as external beam radiotherapy (EBRT).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current status of brachytherapy in Europe - A GEC-ESTRO Brachy-HERO survey.
Clin Transl Radiat Oncol
January 2025
A survey regarding utilisation of brachytherapy was distributed to European brachytherapy professionals. Eighty replies from 26 countries were received, two of which were outside Europe. The replies showed that brachytherapy is still widely used.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Pre-operative screening is crucial for elective surgeries and can be optimized by the PACMAN procedure, designed to evaluate patient suitability for telephone consultations instead of in-person visits.
- In a study conducted at a medical center in the Netherlands, PACMAN triaged 965 patients, with 73.1% deemed suitable for phone consultations, significantly reducing the number of in-person consultations needed.
- The PACMAN method not only improved efficiency by 20% but also maintained a low rate of unanticipated adverse events, confirming its effectiveness in enhancing pre-operative processes while ensuring patient safety.
Purpose: Without a clear definition of an optimal treatment plan, no optimization model can be perfect. Therefore, instead of automatically finding a single "optimal" plan, finding multiple, yet different near-optimal plans, can be an insightful approach to support radiation oncologists in finding the plan they are looking for.
Methods And Materials: BRIGHT is a flexible AI-based optimization method for brachytherapy treatment planning that has already been shown capable of finding high-quality plans that trade-off target volume coverage and healthy tissue sparing.