Brachytherapy for pancreatic cancer: a review

Brachytherapy has been used for pancreatic cancer for over eight decades. Appositional, interstitial and intraluminal applications have been employed. Data from approximately three hundred cases are summarized in this review. The most common form of brachytherapy. Although this procedure, when combined with external beam radiation therapy and systemic chemotherapy, provides the best possible local control of pancreatic cancer, it is a hazardous procedure in most hands. Hopefully, the new techniques, such as intraluminal brachytherapy and infusional brachytherapy, will less prone to serious complications and they will prove to be efficacious in the management of cancer of the pancreas.