High Dose Rate Brachytherapy in the Treatment of Cervical Cancer: Preliminary Experience with Cobalt 60 Radionuclide Source—

Iridium-192 is widely used for high-dose rate brachytherapy. Co-60 source with similar geometric and dosimetric properties are now available. It has a longer half life but higher energy than Iridium-192. If Co-60 source can produce similar results, it will be more economical for low resource settings. Objective To evaluate the acute gastrointestinal and genitourinary toxicity associated with Co-60 source in the brachytherapy of cervical cancer. Methods Seventy patients with cervical cancer received 45 Gy in 22 fractions of pelvic external beam radiotherapy and 19.5 Gy in 3 fractions of HDR with Co-60 source using tandem and ring applicators with 6 courses of cisplatin 50 mg/m 2 and 5 fluorouracil 1000 mg/m 2 every 3 weeks Toxicity was scored using NCI-CTC version 4.0. Results The median total BED (Gy 10 ) for tumor was 86.2 (84.4–88.8) while that for rectum (BED Gy 3 ) was 124.4 (120–133). Two patients (3%) had grade 3 gastrointestinal toxicity while all others had ≤grade 2 toxicity and this is comparable with previous results. Conclusion Co-60 as HDR brachytherapy source is tolerable and is economical for low resource settings.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

15 more references, whose wording the paper’s licence keeps private.

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.