Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy (or “internal radiation therapy”) is another form of radiotherapy and is an advanced treatment for cancer diseases that involves placing seeds or radioactive sources in or near the tumour, which deliver a high dose of radiation into the tumour volume while reducing radiation exposure to healthy tissue. The term “brachy” comes from the Greek language and means “short distances”. Thus, brachytherapy is radiotherapy delivered at a short distance: localised, precise and high-tech.

Brachytherapy can be used in several types of cancer, such as:

At Amethyst, our radiotherapists focus on treating the gynaecological area with brachytherapy. Brachytherapy can be done on an outpatient basis for the gynaecological area and does not require any surgery. In contrast, brachytherapy to treat breast cancer, for example, requires the placement of applicators delivering radiation inside the breast after mastectomy, and this procedure involves surgery.

At Amethyst, intracavitary brachytherapy, HDR type, is performed in short sessions of 2-4 minutes depending on the type of treatment, i.e. curative or post-operative/neo-adjuvant.
The Flexitron treatment device, is a remote-controlled high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy machine equipped with an encapsulated radioactive source containing the radioisotope Iridium 192. The radioactive source is placed into the tumour volume via transfer tubes that connect to the treatment facility and the location-specific applicator set. The positions and dwell times of the radioactive source required to achieve optimal dose distribution are calculated with the Oncentra computerised treatment planning system.

Benefits of brachytherapy:

The Flexitron treatment facility allows the minimum distance between two consecutive positions where the radioactive source can be stationed to be only 1 mm, resulting in superior dose distributions;
Computed tomography images are used for computerised treatment planning, defining the tumour volume to be irradiated and the critical organs to be protected is much more precise than older technologies using orthogonal radiographic images;
The Oncentra computerised treatment planning system allows the use of the inverse method of treatment planning, where the positions and dwell times of the radioactive source are calculated using mathematical algorithms based on dose targets and restrictions set by the medical physicist, as opposed to the direct planning method where the medical physicist sets these parameters manually;
The implantation procedure of the applicator system is done after the administration of anaesthesia to reduce patient discomfort;
The Zephyr system, produced by Diacor, is used to transfer the patient, using an air cushion device to transfer the patient from the gynaecological table to the CT table, thus eliminating the risk of possible movement of the implanted applicator system.

București

Phone: 021.9368
Address: no 42, Drumul Odăi, Otopeni

Cluj-Napoca

Phone: 021.9368
Address: no 486G, Răzoare Street, Florești

Timișoara

Phone: 021.9368
Address: no 12, Bela Bartok Street, Dumbrăvița, Timiș County

Alba-Iulia

Phone: 021.9368
Address: no 10, Louis Pasteur Street, Alba-Iulia, Alba County