OBJECTIVE(S) To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the Micralax applicator and of methyl cellulose placebo gel for use in vaginal microbicide clinical trials. DESIGN A two-centre prospective study following women for 2 months. SETTING Two primary health care clinics in South Africa. PATIENTS, PARTICIPANTS Female volunteers (n = 28) 18 years or older who were HIV negative and ha...

The purpose of this study was to model the distribution of biological effect around a miniature isotropic X-ray source incorporating spherical applicators for single-dose or hypo-fractionated partial-breast intraoperative radiotherapy. A modification of the linear-quadratic formalism was used to calculate the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of 50 kV X rays as a function of dose and irra...

A gynaecological applicator consisting of a metallic intra-uterine tube with a plastic vaginal applicator and an HDR Ir-192 source have been simulated with MCNP5 (Monte Carlo code). A solid phantom has been designed to perform measurements around the applicator with radiochromic films. The isodose curves obtained are compared with curves calculated with the F4MESH tally of MCNP5 with a good agr...

BACKGROUND Bipolar radiofrequency ablation (RFA) can avoid complications such as thermal tissue damage, a possible consequence of monopolar RFA. However, basic studies about the dosage/effect relationship of bipolar systems are missing. This is systematic research on ex vivo beef livers to find which capacity parameters produce high energy in the tissue and achieve large lesion volumes. MATER...

introduction: brachytherapy is a type of radiotherapy in which radioactive sources are used in proximity of tumors normally for treatment of malignancies in the head, prostate and cervix. materials and methods: the cs-137 selectron source is a low-dose-rate (ldr) brachytherapy source used in a remote afterloading system for treatment of different cancers. this system uses active and inactive sp...

Children up to 6 years of age who lived with pesticide applicators were monitored for increased risk of pesticide exposure: 48 pesticide applicator and 14 reference families were recruited from an agricultural region of Washington State in June 1995. A total of 160 spot urine samples were collected from 88 children, including repeated measures 3-7 days apart. Samples were assayed by gas chromat...

This work demonstrates the feasibility of a hybrid radiofrequency (RF) applicator that supports magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and MR controlled targeted RF heating at ultrahigh magnetic fields (B0≥7.0T). For this purpose a virtual and an experimental configuration of an 8-channel transmit/receive (TX/RX) hybrid RF applicator was designed. For TX/RX bow tie antenna electric dipoles were employ...

PURPOSE During intracavitary brachytherapy (ICBT) for cervical cancer, the choice of applicator system remains rather arbitrary. However, as the applicator geometry may play an important role in dose distribution, thereby improving the therapeutic ratio, this study was conducted to compare the Manchester-style and Fletcher-style applicator systems. MATERIAL AND METHODS After completion of EBR...

BACKGROUND Accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) may be used to deliver radiation to the tumor bed post-lumpectomy in eligible patients with breast cancer. Patient and tumor characteristics as well as the lumpectomy technique can influence patient eligibility for APBI. This report describes a lumpectomy procedure and examines patient, tumor, and surgical characteristics from a prospecti...