두경부암의 근접방사선 치료

Brachytherapy for Head and Neck Cancer

Brachytherapy is a method of radiotherapy in advantage to achieve better local control with minimum radiation toxicity in comparison with external irradiation because radiation dose is distributed according to the inverse square low of gamma-ray emitted from the implanted sources. The main characteristics of brachytherapy are delivering of higher dose to target volume shortening of total treatment period and sparing of normal tissue. Recent development of iridium ribbons for low dose rate implant provides improvement of technology of brachytherapy in terms of safety and efficiency. High dose rate method. on the other hand, is effective to avoid unnecessary expoure of medical personnel.