BACKGROUND Registering CTs for patients receiving external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) with a boost dose from high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR) can be challenging due to considerable image discrepancies (e.g. rectal fillings, HDR needles, HDR artefacts and HDR rectal packing materials). This study is the first to comparatively evaluate image processing and registration methods used to register th...

PURPOSE Recent analyses of clinical results have suggested that the fractionation sensitivity of prostate tumors is remarkably high; corresponding point estimates of the alpha/beta ratio for prostate cancer are around 1.5 Gy, much lower than the typical value of 10 Gy for many other tumors. This low alpha/beta value is comparable to, and possibly even lower than, that of the surrounding late-re...

Studies suggest that anterior beams with in vivo range verification would improve rectal dosimetry in proton therapy for prostate cancer. We investigated whether prostate-rectum spacers would enhance or diminish the benefits of anterior proton beams in these treatments. Twenty milliliters of hydrogel was injected between the prostate and rectum of a cadaver using a transperineal approach. Compu...

Prostate carcinoma occasionally can present with rectal obstructive symptoms and an annular constricting lesion of the rectum. Discriminating between primary rectal carcinoma and prostate carcinoma locally invasive to the rectum is of obvious importance because of the different treatments and prognoses. History and physical examination play only a marginal role in differentiating between these ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether patient-reported quality of life after high-dose external beam intensitymodulated radiotherapy for prostate cancer can be improved by decreasing planning target volume margins while using real-time tumor tracking. METHODS Study patients underwent radiotherapy with nominal 3-mm margins and electromagnetic real-time tracking. Morbidity was assessed before and at t...

PURPOSE We examined the influence of body mass index (BMI) and body fat distribution on rectal dose in patients treated with permanent seed brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. METHODS AND MATERIALS We analyzed 213 patients treated with I125 seed brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. BMI and rectal dosimetry data for all patients were available. Data on visceral and subcutaneou...

BACKGROUND Intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT), non-coplanar 4π intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) represent the most advanced treatment methods based on heavy ion and X-rays, respectively. Here we compare their performance for prostate cancer treatment. METHODS Ten prostate patients were planned using IMPT with robustness optimizat...

INTRODUCTION Prostate biopsy, usually performed by a transrectal approach, is executed when there is a suspicion of prostate cancer. Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are epithelial neoplasms with predominant neuroendocrine differentiation and only 19% of them are localized in the rectum. CASE REPORT The authors describe a 73-year-old man without a significant past medical history that underwent a...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a spacer inserted in the prerectal space could reduce modeled rectal dose and toxicity rates for patients with prostate cancer treated in silico with pencil beam scanning (PBS) proton therapy. A total of 20 patients were included in this study who received photon therapy (12 with rectal spacer (DuraSeal™ gel) and 8 without). Two PBS treatment pl...

Introduction Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) is becoming an increasingly routine treatment method. IMRT can be delivered by use of conventional Multileaf Collimators (MLCs) and/or physical compensators. One of the most important factors in selecting an appropriate IMRT technique is integral dose. Integral dose is equal to the mean energy deposited in the total irradiated volume of the p...