Brachytherapy device (sealed brachytherapy source)

Cervical Cancer, Prostate Cancer, and Post-Mastectomy Breast Cancer Treatment (SAVI)

Unlike external irradiation, which uses a conventional linear accelerator to irradiate the lesion with radiation from outside the body, brachytherapy is used in internal irradiation, where a radioactive material called a brachytherapy source is placed near or inside the lesion to irradiate the lesion from within the body. Because radiation rapidly decays with distance from the source, appropriate source placement has the advantage of allowing a high dose to be administered to the lesion while minimizing exposure to normal tissue. At our hospital, we use a dedicated treatment CT scanner in the adjacent room and an MRI scanner in the new building to create a 3D treatment plan and begin high-precision image-guided brachytherapy.

It is currently used as a radical radiation therapy for cervical cancer and prostate cancer, and has been reported to produce treatment results that are comparable to surgery. It can also be used to treat recurrence of various cancers.
In the future, it is expected that this technology will also be applied to radiation therapy after breast-conserving surgery for breast cancer.