Brachytherapy: a new era

Abstract

Radioactivity was discovered by Becquerel in 1896. Two years later, Marie Curie extracted radium from pitchblende ore [ [1] Mazeron J.J. Gerbaulet A. The centenary of discovery of radium. Radiother Oncol. 1998; 49: 205-216 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (13) Google Scholar ]. During the first decade of the 20th century, the first treatments with radium were performed [ [2] Gerbaulet A, Pötter R, Mazeron JJ, Meertens H, Van Limbergen E. The GEC ESTRO hand book of brachytherapy. ESTRO Ed; 2002. Google Scholar ]. In 1934, artificial radioactivity was discovered by Irène Curie and Frédéric Joliot, and opened a new era of brachytherapy using artificial radionuclides. During the 1970s and the 1980s, the development of remote afterloading machines has allowed complete radioprotection. During the last decade of the 20th century and the first years of the new millennium, the situation evolved dramatically. The impressive progress of 3D imaging, the rapidly increasing speed and capacity of computers, and the sophisticated techniques developed for the modern afterloaders, opened a new era. This appears clearly when reviewing the last issues of Radiotherapy and Oncology.