Ebook: Interstitial and Intracavitary Thermoradiotherapy

The use of hyperthermia in radiation oncology is well established. Many publications cover the whole field of possibilities and problems of this therapeutic modality. The new development of interstitial and intracavitary hyperthermia, however, is not well known: there are only a few relevant publications in different journals. Therefore, it was appropriate that SAUER and SEEGENSCHMIEDT organized an international meeting on this topic, where experiences with this new and promising technique were compiled and discussed by experts. The papers of this symposium together with additional review papers and clinical studies are published in this volume. The publication begins with the physical and biological background of interstitial and intracavitary hyperthermia continues with comprehensive review papers on clinical topics and then gives examples for a wide variety of clinical applications. This volume will contribute to better understanding and application of the treatment possibilities of radio oncology in combination with this new treatment modality.

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While hyperthermia has long been used within radiation oncology, the highly promising new techniques of interstitial and intracavitary hyperthermia are generally less well known. The considerable advantage of "internal" application of combined radiotherapy and hyperthermia is thata high degree of therapeutic efficacy can be achieved within a limited target volume while sparing surrounding structures from side-effects. It is therefore no surprise that the past decade has witnessed a dramatic increasein basic research into internal heating techniques, together with rapid technical development and expansion of clinical applications. This timely volume summarizes all essential biological aspects of heat interaction with radiotherapy, presents the technical state of the art, and analyzes the clinical results achieved with application of interstitial and intracavitary thermo-radiotherapy for tumors of a variety of sites. Treatment control and planning are given full consideration in a separate section, as too are special clinical applications. The final section discusses the design and performance of multicenter clinical trials. This book, written by recognized experts, will be of great valueto the theoretical researcher, the oncological practitioner, and specialistsin all related theoretical and clinical sciences of oncology.