Our experience in brachytherapy of certain non-cancerous diseases

Brachytherapy of non-cancerous diseases has been used from the beginning of our century. The analgetic and antiinflammatory effects of gamma rays of the radionuclide Ra-226 has been used in the health resort in Jáchymov, located in Ore Mountains, Northern Bohemia since about 1911 in the therapy of patients hospitalized here with rheumatic diseases of joints, tendons and muscles, including the therapy of radical syndromes. The conditions for the therapy by this method are the age of above 42 years, normal blood count and certain other parameters commonly used in the non-cancer brachytherapy. The radiation dose depends on the degree of the involvement. The local single dose in our patients was of 1.8 to 3.5 Gy with an exposure time of 6 hours. In our work, we considered the degree of the damage to the skin on the irradiation site, after single dose, immediately after the application, as well as after the repeated irradiation in the course of several years. In persons followed, we also provided the examination of the blood count before and after irradiation. The results obtained demonstrated that the brachytherapy used in the health resort Jáchymov is safe and that it exerts no adverse effects on the patients submitted to it.