Brachytherapy-A Brief Review with focus on Carcinoma Cervix

Brachytherapy has been historically described as the first form of conformal technique where radioactive source is placed inside or very close to the tumour. With this modality of radiation a high dose could be delivered to the tumour with maximal sparing of adjacent normal structures. The dose gradient follows the inverse square law which states that the dose falls off sharply with increasing distance from the source. The evolution of this modality started with the use of radium initially, later development of numerous other sealed radioactive sources led to extensive use of this form of therapy in oncology. This has been most efficiently and extensively utilised in the treatment of carcinoma cervix. The earlier concept of point based treatment later changed to the development of volume based treatment.