Placement of 125I implants with the da Vinci robotic system after video-assisted thoracoscopic wedge resection: a feasibility study.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of using the da Vinci robotic system for radioactive seed placement in the wedge resection margin of pigs' lungs.

Methods And Materials: Video-assisted thoracoscopic wedge resection was performed in the upper and lower lobes in pigs. Dummy (125)I seeds embedded in absorbable sutures were sewn into the resection margin with the aid of the da Vinci robotic system without complications.

Verification of Ir-192 near source dosimetry using GAFCHROMIC film.

Intravascular brachytherapy treatments of in-stent restenosis have been performed extensively using Ir-192 ribbon. Task Group 60 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) recommends a dose reference point at 2 mm from the source center for these treatments. However, it is known that the source can be as close as 0.

Autopsy verifies demyelination and lack of vascular damage in partially reversible radiation myelopathy.

Study Design: Case report of recovering radiation myelopathy.

Objective: To present autopsy and functional imaging findings on a unique case of slowly recovering radiation myelopathy with the aim of the clarification of the underlying mechanism.

Patient: The cervical spinal cord and the distal part of the medulla oblongata of a 36-year-old thyroid cancer patient had been incorrectly irradiated with a total dose of 61 Gy and a fraction size of 3.

Concurrent paclitaxel-cisplatin and twice-a-day irradiation in stage IIIA and IIIB NSCLC shows improvement in local control and survival with acceptable hematologic toxicity.

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has one of the highest death rates among the various forms of cancer. In attempts to improve on this unsatisfactory outcome, different radiation schedules and chemo-therapy agents have been examined in phase II or III studies. These have led to modest improvements in local control and survival, but combined therapies are associated with substantial hematologic toxicity.

Dose heterogeneity may not affect the neointimal proliferation after gamma radiation for in-stent restenosis: a volumetric intravascular ultrasound dosimetric study.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to use serial (postirradiation and follow-up) volumetric intravascular ultrasound (IVUS): 1) to evaluate the actual distribution of gamma radiation in human in-stent restenosis (ISR) lesions, and 2) to analyze the relationship between neointimal regrowth and the delivered radiation dose.

Background: The relationship between the neointimal regrowth and delivered dose during the treatment of ISR remains unknown.

Methods: We analyzed 20 actively (gamma emitter) treated, native artery ISR patients from the Washington Radiation for In-Stent restenosis Trial (WRIST) that met the following criteria: on both postirradiation and six-month follow-up IVUS imaging, > or =80% of the external elastic membrane circumference could be identified throughout the treated length including the lesion and proximal and distal reference segments.