ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S290

Brachytherapy - Head & neck, skin, eye

ESTRO 2024

physical dose in GESTALT, a prospective, phase 3 trial which evaluates local control benefits of incorporating GammaTile® BT in treatment of GBM.

Keywords: gammatile, glioblastoma, neurosurgery

201

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Cadaveric training for H&N brachytherapy: The Tata Memorial Hospital and BrachyAcademy experience

Elena Dizendorf 1 , Monali Swain 2 , Suman Ghosh 2 , Samarpita Mohanty 2 , Sarbani Ghosh Laskar 2 , Shwetabh Sinha 2 , Anuj Kumar 2 , Jai Prakash Agarwal 2 , Ashwini Budrukkar 2 1 Elekta, Brachy Solutions, Veenendaal, Netherlands. 2 Tata Memorial Hospital, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Department of Radiation Oncology, Mumbai, India

Purpose/Objective:

Cadaveric training remains a gold standard for surgeons but rarely used in brachytherapy (BT). Alternatively, available mannequins are not cost-effective and do not simulate the soft tissue structure of complex head and neck (H&N) region. Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) and BrachyAcademy (non-profit peer-to-peer educational initiative at Elekta) developed a hands-on cadaveric workshop (CW) as a part of the H&N and Breast BT teaching course. This study describes the organization of this training and evaluates its efficiency.

Material/Methods:

The 3-day H&N and Breast BT teaching course was held in April 2023 at the TMH in Mumbai, India. A pre-course survey was sent to the participants to understand their experience and expectation regarding the teaching course.

The H&N hands-on CW for radiation oncologists (RO) was organized in the Surgical Skills Lab at the Topiwala National Medical College & B.Y.L. Nair Charitable Hospital in Mumbai. The CW lasted 4 hours including 1h 25 min of practical training for each of two groups. A sterile surgical environment was simulated in the training room. Six fresh frozen, non-embalmed adult human cadavers (5 male, 1 female) were used for the training purpose. Teachers demonstrated step-by-step BT interstitial technique for buccal mucosa cancer on one cadaver with broadcasting to a big screen, and five other cadavers were used by participants. All ROs performed 2-plane implant using flexible 6F implant tubes (subcutaneous and submucosal planes; parallel needles in triangles – 1 cm apart). Each team included 3-4 participants and led by a mentor.

Participants completed a post-course questionnaire which included combination of qualitative and quantitative questions via Likert scale, and 1 to 10 scale.

Results:

Thirty-three ROs from 3 countries (India – 31, Kenya – 1, Estonia – 1) attended the CW. Twenty-seven participants (82%) replied to the pre-course survey (Table 1).