Review on Treatment Planning Systems for Cervix Brachytherapy (Interventional Radiotherapy): Some Desirable and Convenient Practical Aspects to Be Implemented from Radiation Oncologist and Medical Physics Perspectives.

Intracavitary brachytherapy (BT, Interventional Radiotherapy, IRT), plays an essential role in the curative intent of locally advanced cervical cancer, for which the conventional approach involves external beam radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy followed by BT. This work aims to review the different methodologies used by commercially available treatment planning systems (TPSs) in exclusive magnetic resonance imaging-based (MRI) cervix BT with interstitial component treatments. Practical aspects and improvements to be implemented into the TPSs are discussed.

Evaluation of the impact of EMBRACE II protocol in Spanish centers, with a large cohort of patients using a ranking index.

Purpose: The aim of this paper was to assess development of high-dose-rate (HDR) cervix brachytherapy (BT) implants in three Spanish institutions before and after introduction of EMBRACE II protocol.

Material And Methods: 392 patients from three different institutions, treated between 2009 and 2019 were analyzed. D of high-risk clinical target volume (HR-CTV) and D of organs at risk (OARs) of all patients were collected.

Phantom development for daily checks in electron intraoperative radiotherapy with a mobile linac.

Purpose: IORT with mobile linear accelerators is a well-established modality where the dose rate and, therefore, the dose per pulse are very high. The constancy of the dosimetric parameters of the accelerator has to be checked daily. The aim of this work is to develop a phantom with embedded detectors to improve both accuracy and efficiency in the daily test of an IORT linac at the surgery room.

Inter-observer and intra-observer variability in reporting vaginal dose points for cervical cancer in high-dose-rate brachytherapy.

Purpose: The ICRU 89 recommends reporting a set of vaginal dose points for cervical cancer treatments in order to quantify the goodness of implant. This vaginal dose reporting method for combined external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy has been adopted by the EMBRACE II study protocol. Large variations in dose between patients and centers have been reported.

Assessment of the dicentric chromosome assay as a biodosimetry tool for more personalized medicine in a case of a high risk neuroblastoma I-mIBG treatment.

Purpose: The aims of this study were to estimate the whole - body absorbed - dose with the Dicentric Chromosome Assay (DCA) (biodosimetry) for I - metaiodobenzylguanidine (I - mIBG) therapy for high - risk neuroblastoma, and to obtain an initial correlation with the physical dosimetry calculated as described by the Medical Internal Radiation Dosimetry formalism (MIRD). Together both objectives will aid the optimization of personalized targeted radionuclide therapies.

Material And Methods: A 12 year-old child with relapsed high-risk neuroblastoma was treated with I-mIBG: a first administration with activity <444 MBq/kg was used as a tracer in order to calculate the activity needed in a second administration to achieve a whole body prescribed dose of ∼4 Gy.