Brachytherapy is an advanced treatment for several types of cancers. During the treatment, radioactive seeds are placed in or around the tumor, giving a high dose of radiation to the cancerous tumor while limiting the radiation exposure to the surrounding healthy tissue.
Brachytherapy is used to treat:
Breast Cancer
Specialist: Dr. Rakesh R. Patel
It is estimated that 203,500 new invasive cases of breast cancer will occur among women in the United States in 2002. Breast brachytherapy is more localized means of treatment than standard external beam radiotherapy, so there is a lower dose to healthy tissue of the breast, skin, ribs, muscle, lung, and heart.
Cervical Cancer
Specialist: Dr. Kristin Bradley
The advantages of high dose rate brachytherapy to treat cervical cancer include outpatient treatment, patient convenience, economic savings, precise radiation delivery since there is essentially no applicator movement with the shorter treatment times, and the ability to tailor the radiation doses since multiple treatments are ultilized.
Prostate Cancer
Specialist: Dr. Mark Ritter
Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, exceeded only by lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Radioactive implants offer men an effective treatment option for early prostate cancer that is less disruptive to their lives than standard treatment.