The Valencia applicators (Nucletron, an Elekta company, Elekta AB, Stockholm, Sweden) are cup-shaped tungsten applicators with a flattening filter used to collimate the radiation produced by a high-dose-rate (HDR) 192Ir source, and provide a homogeneous absorbed dose at a given depth. This beam quality provides a good option for the treatment of skin lesions at shallow depth (3-4 mm). The user ...

This paper details a practical method for deriving the reference air kerma rate calibration coefficient for Farmer NE2571 chambers using the U.K. Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) code of practice for the determination of the reference air kerma rate for HDR (192)Ir brachytherapy sources based on the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) air kerma standard. The reference air ...

The NCRP Wound Model, which describes the retention of selected radionuclides at the site of a contaminated wound and their uptake into the transfer compartment, has been combined with the ICRP element-specific systemic models for those radionuclides to derive dose coefficients for intakes via contaminated wounds. These coefficients can be used to generate derived regulatory guidance (i.e., the...

PURPOSE To report on our experience in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) by radical radiotherapy alone in our institution during the last decade. METHODS AND MATERIALS From January 1990 to May 1999, 905 NPC patients were treated and were studied retrospectively. Radical radiotherapy was given to this cohort by conventional technique in a routine dose of 70-72 Gy to the primary t...

Materials and methods Between August 2003 and July 2008, 50 women (median age 65 years; range 65–84; 45 with infiltrating ductal, 1 infiltrating tubular, 1 infiltrating papillary and 3 DCIS) were enrolled in a phase II prospective study. Treatment schedule was 4 Gy twice a day for a total dose of 32 Gy, with a minimum interval of 6 hours between the two daily fraction Therapy was delivered usin...

Quantitative information on photon scattering around brachytherapy sources is needed to develop dose calculation formalisms capable of predicting dosimetric parameters with minimal empiricism. Photon absorption and scatter around brachytherapy sources can be characterized using the tissue attenuation factor, defined as the ratio of dose in water to water kerma in free space. In this study, the ...

PURPOSE The literature and experience of high-dose-rate (HDR) surface mould brachytherapy (SMB) in head and neck cancer is sparse. We report our institutional experience of SMB for such tumours. MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty-five patients with malignant localized early T1/T2, N0 (21 intra-oral and 14 skin) tumours treated with SMB during 2008-2014 were analyzed. Treatment was delivered using HD...