Brachytherapy is potentially useful in the treatment of head-and-
neck cancers, because most
tumor sites, such as the lip, tongue, floor of mouth, tonsil, pharynx, nasopharynx, sinuses, and neck, are accessible for the placement of afterloading applicators and
catheters. It has the advantage of delivering a higher radiation dose to the
tumor while sparing surrounding normal tissue from radiation. Furthermore, the overall
treatment duration is shorter, and the dose distribution confirms to
tumor shape.
Brachytherapy is used as "monotherapy" for the treatment of small primary
tumors or recurrent disease after external beam
radiation therapy (EBRT). Small
cancers of the lip (less than 2 cm) are treated equally well with surgery or
radiation therapy with excellent cosmetic and functional results seen in
radiation therapy. We treated an 18-year old male diagnosed as stage I
carcinoma lip with curative interstitial
brachytherapy. He was treated to a dose of 3 Gy per fraction, two fractions per day at interval of 6 hours between the two fractions for 6 days. He therefore received a total dose of 36 Gy with High Dose Rate (HDR)
Brachytherapy, which is equivalent to 58.36 Gy conventional
radiotherapy dose. At two months follow, the patient is clinically disease free and has no complaints.