ESTRO38 Congress Report

Introduction Brachytherapy track

in cervical cancer. All these studies are further escribed in the next section. This meeting could not have been such a success without the tremendous work and input of authors, speakers, session chairs, members of the Scientific Advisory Group, abstract reviewers and the ESTRO office, and we are very

At ESTRO 38, brachytherapy was well represented with a diversity of topics and innovative research.

The pre-meeting course addressed the management of high-risk prostate cancer. This course was notable for its multidisciplinary content. The importance of brachytherapy for prostate cancer treatment was highlighted in conjunction with other disciplines. Two teaching lectures were presented. The first lecture was on the role of postoperative radiotherapy, including brachytherapy, for the treatment of endometrial cancer. This is an indication for which brachytherapy has been proven to be essential for good local control. The second lecture was on penile cancer, a rather rare disease where brachytherapy plays an important role for organ preservation. The several symposia addressed a diversity of topics linked to brachytherapy. New developments for a standardised concept for the treatment of vaginal cancer were presented with participation of investigators fromU.S.A. An important aspect of progress in brachytherapy are technological developments. There was a symposium on real time navigation technologies in brachytherapy. Another symposiumaddressed developments in treatment planning in order to produce fast, reliable, and optimal treatment plans. A debate was held on the partial breast treatment with brachytherapy. The multi-catheter and intracavity/ balloon techniques were compared and discussed. There were six proffered paper sessions on the two days Brachytherapy Track. Treatment verification was one topic addressing tracking systems and in-vivo dosimetry. A study that caught attention was by Saree Alnaghy et al. with HDR source tracking systems. This year treatment planning optimization solutions were of great interest. This was not only addressed in the symposium, but also in a proffered paper session. In the latter session, the ESTRO-Elekta Brachytherapy Award was given to Anton Bouter et al. for the most innovative paper. In this paper, prostate treatment plans were generated by performing bi-objective optimization with evolutionary algorithms. Besides the usual sessions on cervix, prostate, skin, and breast, there was a whole session on uncommon indications, such as liver tumours and penile cancer. In the Prostate session Max Peters et al. was awarded the GEC-ESTRO Best Junior Presentation for a study of single dose focal salvage brachytherapy. Another prostate paper by Hannah Tharmalingam et al. on single dose primary brachytherapy for prostate cancer attracted a lot of attention and was discussed in the Highlight Plenary session. In the Breast session, Jean-Michel Hannoun-Levi discussed a paper from the GEC-ESTRO Breast Working Group for a second conservative treatment of locally recurrent breast cancer using brachytherapy. Other papers that were of great interest included one by Jean-Pierre Gérard et al on contact brachytherapy for rectal cancer and another fromMonica Serban et al on the influence of brachytherapy technique BRADLEY PIETERS

grateful to them all. Bradley Pieters Chair, SAG Brachytherapy

Congress report | BRACHYTHERAPY

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