From September 1984 to December 1989, 38 patients of pediatric age with localized bone sarcomas received intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) as part of a multidisciplinary treatment program. The age ranged from 6 to 21 years. The tumor histologies were 22 osteosarcomas and 16 Ewing's sarcomas. Thirty-four had initial primary disease (90%) and 4 were treated for local recurrence (10%). IORT was u...

BACKGROUND Surgery of radiation-induced cataracts in children with retinoblastoma (RB) is a challenge as early intervention is weighted against the need to delay surgery until complete tumour control is obtained. This study analyses the safety and functional results of such surgery. METHODS In a retrospective, non-comparative, consecutive case series, we reviewed medical records of RB patient...

BACKGROUND Adjuvant radiotherapy is common for uterine corpus cancer patients, yet the long-term carcinogenic effects of different types of radiotherapy have not been studied adequately. METHODS Second primary cancer risks were quantified in a cohort of 60,949 individuals surviving > or = 1 year of uterine corpus cancer diagnosed from 1973 to 2003 in Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results...

BACKGROUND Retinoblastoma is the most common primary intraocular malignancy in children. The management of retinoblastoma is complex and depends on several factors. METHODS This review provides an update on current and emerging therapeutic options for retinoblastoma. The medical literature was searched for articles relevant to the management of retinoblastoma. The results of prospective and r...

As complexity for treating patients increases, so does the risk of error. Some publications have suggested that record and verify (R&V) systems may contribute in propagating errors. Direct data transfer has the potential to eliminate most, but not all, errors. And although the dosimetric consequences may be obvious in some cases, a detailed study does not exist. In this effort, we examined pote...

PURPOSE External beam radiotherapy may be given after radical prostatectomy as adjuvant (immediate) or therapeutic (delayed) treatment, the latter in response to evidence of disease recurrence. In patients receiving delayed radiotherapy the necessity of a positive anastomotic biopsy before treatment remains unclear. We determined whether a positive anastomotic biopsy predicted the response to r...

PURPOSE To evaluate the role of concurrent cisplatin plus radiotherapy in the treatment of cervical cancer. METHODS A systematic review of randomized trials of cisplatin administered concurrently with external beam radiotherapy versus radiotherapy without cisplatin for cervical cancer was combined with a meta-analysis of results abstracted from published reports of the trials. RESULTS Poole...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term results of primary radiotherapy treatment for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the nasal vestibule. METHODS Eighty-one patients were treated with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and/or interstitial radiotherapy (IRT) for a primary, localized, Wang classified SCC of the nasal vestibule. RESULTS Median follow-up was 38 month...

BACKGROUND Men with high-risk prostate cancer are often thought to have very poor outcomes in terms of disease control and survival even after definitive treatment. However, results after external beam radiotherapy have improved significantly through dose escalation and the use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). This report describes long-term findings after low-dose (< 75.6 Gy) or high-dos...

The purpose of this work was to experimentally investigate the out-of-field dose in a water phantom, with several high energy electron beams used in external beam radiotherapy (RT). The study was carried out for 6, 9, 12, and 18 MeV electron beams, on three different linear accelerators, each equipped with a specific applicator. Measurements were performed in a water phantom, at different depth...