Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Apr 28, 2017; 9(4): 148-154
Published online Apr 28, 2017. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i4.148
Published online Apr 28, 2017. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i4.148
New era of electronic brachytherapy
Prabhakar Ramachandran, Department of Physical Sciences, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, VIC 3165, Australia
Author contributions: Ramachandran P contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Ramachandran P declares no conflict of interest related to this publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Prabhakar Ramachandran, MSc, MCA, PhD, MACPSEM, MARPS, MinstP, DABR, Lead Physicist, Associate Professor, Department of Physical Sciences, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, 305 Grattan St, Melbourne, VIC 3165, Austalia. ramachandran.prabhakar@petermac.org
Telephone: +61-3-99288964
Received: August 30, 2016
Peer-review started: September 2, 2016
First decision: September 26, 2016
Revised: December 15, 2016
Accepted: January 16, 2017
Article in press: January 18, 2017
Published online: April 28, 2017
Processing time: 241 Days and 15.1 Hours
Peer-review started: September 2, 2016
First decision: September 26, 2016
Revised: December 15, 2016
Accepted: January 16, 2017
Article in press: January 18, 2017
Published online: April 28, 2017
Processing time: 241 Days and 15.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Electronic brachytherapy is a new form of radiotherapy that delivers a very high dose of radiation inside or very close to the cancer tissues. These devices utilize a miniaturized X-ray source to deliver radiation at relatively high dose rates to the target volume. Electronic brachytherapy eliminates some of the accidents related to radionuclide brachytherapy such as loss of sources, radiation leakage in off state, transportation accidents and radioactive waste. It finds wide applications in the treatment of cancers including skin, breast, endometrium, cervix and spinal metastasis. Electronic brachytherapy is a promising technology of the future and could potentially replace radionuclide brachytherapy.