The traditional treatment for cancer is surgery. A modern and very rapidly growing alternative is radiation treatment. At present, brachytherapy radiation treatment, i.e. a technique where the radioactive sources are inserted in the patient's body, is conducted by two principal methods:

Either by implanting radioactive seeds of low activity (LDR) and leaving them in the tumour forever (continuously decreasing activity of the seeds because of the decay) or by a short-duration treatment using a computer driven single high activity radioactive source (HDR) and catheters or needles inserted temporary in the tissue.

The aim of the project was to create a dual usage brachytherapy system employing seeds (LDR) or catheters (HDR) using 3D-ultrasound images rather than CT scans.

The system includes the following main components:

• Inexpensive, accurate and easy-to-use LDR (seeds) systems
• New LDR implanting equipment
• Patient modelling system based mainly on 3D-ultrasound either than on CT scans.
• Inverse planing system calculating the minimum number and the optimal position of seeds or catheters to deliver the desired dose on the specified area.
• Navigation system based on templates or magnetic tracker information
• Anatomy Based Optimisation based on genetic algorithms and fine-tuning the dose delivery to compensate differences between ideal and real implant position
• Telemedical features allowing the on-line communication of experts.

Partners
 

• IGD - Fraunhofer Institut fur Graphische Datenverarbeitung
• MedCom GmbH
• Strahlenklinik Offenbach
• Nucletron B.V.
• Esaote
• B-K Medical
• Imaging Research Laboratories (John P. Roberts Research Institute)
• Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine
• London Health Sciences Centre

Our Contribution
 

Validation, clinical tests coordination and integration tests under subcontract with Nucletron.
Subcontract Budget: 120.000 Euro.

The results of this project were used by Nucletron, Pi Medical and MedCom for the development of an inovative product, SWIFT (later known as Oncentra Prostate), released in the market by Nucletron during 2002.