Quon Harry, Harrison Louis B
Department of Radiation Oncology, Beth Israel Medical Center, St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Oncology (Williston Park). 2002 Oct;16(10):1379-93; discussion 1393, 1395-6.
Brachytherapy is a therapeutic modality that may provide a significant improvement in the therapeutic ratio when appropriately applied, and hence, is an appealing treatment strategy for the head and neck. For several tumor sites in the head and neck, the use of a brachytherapy implant has been demonstrated to be effective and is optimally provided within a multidisciplinary team setting. This enables meticulous attention to technical and treatment-related factors that have been demonstrated to influence the therapeutic ratio for low-dose-rate implants. Recent technologic advances have enabled the study of promising high-dose-rate and pulsed-dose-rate afterloading brachytherapy techniques, in an attempt to expand the role of brachytherapy in the head and neck. These techniques minimize radiation exposure hazards while offering the physical and biologic advantages of brachytherapy. Issues pertinent to members of the brachytherapy team providing multidisciplinary care of the implanted head and neck patient are discussed.
近距离放射治疗是一种治疗方式，若应用得当，可显著提高治疗比，因此对头颈部而言是一种有吸引力的治疗策略。对于头颈部的多个肿瘤部位，已证明使用近距离放射治疗植入物是有效的，且在多学科团队环境中能得到最佳实施。这有助于精心关注已证明会影响低剂量率植入物治疗比的技术和与治疗相关的因素。最近的技术进步使得对有前景的高剂量率和脉冲剂量率后装近距离放射治疗技术的研究成为可能，旨在扩大近距离放射治疗在头颈部的作用。这些技术在提供近距离放射治疗的物理和生物学优势的同时，将辐射暴露风险降至最低。本文讨论了近距离放射治疗团队成员在为植入式头颈部患者提供多学科护理时相关的问题。
