[Intraoperative and post-implant dosimetry in patients treated with permanent prostate implant brachytherapy]

The purpose of our work was to compare intraoperative and four-week post-implant dosimetry for loose and stranded seed implants for permanent prostate implant brachytherapy. In our institute low-dose-rate (LDR) prostate brachytherapy is performed with encapsulated I-125 isotopes (seeds) using transrectal ultrasound guidance and metal needles. The SPOT PRO 3.1 (Elekta, Sweden) system is used for treatment planning. In this study the first 79 patients were treated with loose seed (LS) technique, the consecutive patients were treated with stranded seed (SS) technique. During intraoperative planning the dose constraints were the same for both techniques. All LSs were placed inside the prostate capsule, while with SS a 2 mm margin around the prostate was allowed for seed positioning. The prescribed dose for the prostate was 145 Gy. This study investigated prostate dose coverage in 30-30 randomly selected patients with LS and SS. Four weeks after the implantation native CT and MRI were done and CT/MRI image fusion was performed. The target was contoured on MRI and the plan was prepared on CT data. To assess the treatment plan dose-volume histograms were used. For the target coverage V100, V90, D90, D100, for the dose inhomogeneity V150, V200, and the dose-homogeneity index (DHI), for dose conformality the conformal index (COIN) were calculated. Intraoperative and postimplant plans were compared. The mean V100 values decreased at four-week plan for SS (97% vs. 84%) and for LS (96% vs. 80%) technique, as well. Decrease was observed for all parameters except for the DHI value. The DHI increased for SS (0.38 vs. 0.41) and for LS (0.38 vs. 0.47) technique, as well. The COIN decreased for both techniques at four-week plan (SS: 0.63 vs. 0.57; LS: 0.67 vs. 0.50). All differences were significant except for the DHI value at SS technique. The percentage changes were not significant, except the COIN value. The dose coverage of the target decreased significantly at four-week plans for both techniques. The decrease was larger for LS technique, but the difference between techniques was not significant at this patient number. The dose distribution was more homogenous, but the conformality was worse at four-week plans.