ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the important features that gamma-emitting radionuclides should have so that it would be useful for brachytherapy applications. Brachytherapy can be classified according to their dose rates. The chapter presents comparison of the characteristics of low-dose rate and high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy in terms of dose rate, activity and treatment time. It examines several reasons why HDR remote afterloading systems are replacing manual afterloading iridium wire for interstitial implants. HDR brachytherapy can be used for the treatment of cervical cancer. The brachytherapy is often delivered to the patient in addition to external beam radiotherapy. Brachytherapy sources are usually sealed so that the radioactive material is contained fully encapsulated within a protective capsule. The chapter describes how a well chamber is used for the calibration of Ir-192 brachytherapy sources. It also presents a list of the daily quality assurance checks physicist would perform on a HDR brachytherapy unit which contains either an Ir-192 or Co-60 source.
