Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Dear Brachytherapists and Friends,
I recall an extraordinary 8th Biannual Conference of the Polish Brachytherapy Society (PBS) held on September 15-16 in Wroclaw (Poland). The meeting motto was “Full steam ahead! – effectiveness, precision, brachytherapy”, emphasizing the efficient role of brachytherapy in oncological care in Poland. The meeting’s multidisciplinary character was an opportunity for oncologists and scientists from domestic and large European centers to exchange their experiences and results. For the first time in the PBS history, several distinguished guests, brachytherapy professionals from Germany (S. Corradini, P. Niehoff, V. Strnad), France (J.M. Hannoun-Levi), Spain (A. Gomez-Iturriaga, V. Gonzalez-Pérez), and Italy (L. Tagliaferri), honored us with their presence. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge, fruitful discussions, and time spent in joy and friendship.
The JCB 5/2022 issue contains ten interesting manuscripts, including six clinical papers, one physics contribution, a single-case report, one review paper, and an educational article. The issue starts with a submission by Christopher Luminais et al. from Virginia (USA), who assessed the feasibility of MRI-guided dose escalation to dominant intra-prostatic lesions (DIL) in prostate cancer management. They propose DIL D90 of over 150% being an achievable goal, without compromising OARs. Then, a group from Ahvaz (Iran) shared their results on poor cosmesis predictors research in breast cancer patients treated conservatively with a combination of EBRT and HDR-BT boost. They stated that multicatheter interstitial BT V29 Gy, irradiation of regional nodes, and larger breast volumes are the potential factors for worse cosmesis prediction. The third clinical manuscript was submitted by Artur J. Chyrek et al. from the Polish Brachytherapy Society (Poznan, Poland). The group conducted a retrospective comparative cohort study on primary or relapsed head and neck skin cancer patients treated with straightforward 2D HDR-BT. The treatment was highly effective and was associated with acceptable skin toxicity. In the fourth paper, Ester Jääskeläinen et al. (Finland) reviewed different treatment protocols for achieved radiation doses of HDR-BT for locally advanced cervical cancer. They compared two fractions in one application, with separate applications for each fraction. The authors concluded that the opportunity to correct the non-optimal position of applicator and deliver...


View full text...