This volume is the first truly international text to take the practitioner from the history, the physical basis, and the rationale of brachytherapy through to the techniques, the results, and the management of complications. It is also the first truly comprehensive and complete textbook of brachytherapy. The chapters on the physics of brachytherapy and the technical planning of internal and surface radiotherapy are designed to enhance the practitioner's knowledge base and capabilities in this demanding specialty field. Disease site-specific chapters cover a wide range of applications, including ocular tumors, soft tissue sarcomas, cancers of the head and neck, skin, breast, lung, esophagus, and prostate, and gynecologic and anorectal malignancies. Each chapter incorporates the American and European guidelines and the text has been written from both perspectives by many of the most noted global experts in the field. A concluding chapter is devoted to brachytherapy quality assurance. Introduction.- History of Brachytherapy.- Physics: Physics of Brachytherapy.- Low Energy Brachytherapy Physics.- Balloon Brachytherapy Physics.- Ocular.- Head and Neck.- Skin.- Sarcoma.- Breast.- Interstitial.- Intracavitary Balloon.- Permanent Breast Seed implant (PBSI).- Management of Ipsilateral Breast tumor Recurrence (IBTR).- Thoracic: Lung and chest Wall.- Esophagus.- Hepatic Brachytherapy.- Gynecologic: Corpus Uteri.- Cervix.- Vulva.- Vagina.- Image Guidance in Gynecologic Brachytherapy.- Prostate: Low Dose Rate Interstitial.- High Dose Rate Interstitial.- Rectum and Anus.- Brachytherpay Quality Assurance.- Index.
