A device for interstitial therapy of low pelvic tumours--the Hammersmith perineal hedgehog.

The freehand production of accurate volume or multiplane implants for interstitial therapy is difficult. The size of tumour that may be treated in this fashion is therefore limited. A solution to this problem is to use a perspex template to guide the implant and maintain its configuration during treatment.

Fractionation of whole body irradiation before bone marrow transplantation for patients with leukaemia.

Thirty patients in various stages of acute leukaemia or chronic granulocytic leukaemia (CGL) were treated with cytotoxic drugs followed by whole body irradiation (TBI) administered in 200 cGy fractions twice daily to a total of 1000 or 1200 cGy. The immediate toxicity of fractionated TBI administered in this way was negligible and patients required only minor premedication and little treatment subsequently for complications attributable to TBI. Fourteen (47%) patients have died, ten of the 12 transplanted with active disease, and four of the 18 subjected to transplantation in remission of acute leukaemia or in chronic phase of CGL.