What is a brachytherapy applicator?

Before your first HDR intracavitary brachytherapy treatment, your healthcare provider will place an applicator into your uterus through your vagina. The applicator will hold the radioactive source during your treatments. The applicator itself isn’t radioactive, and you won’t be radioactive between treatments.

How is brachytherapy performed?

Permanent prostate brachytherapy involves placing many radioactive seeds within the prostate to treat prostate cancer. During the procedure, an ultrasound probe is placed in the rectum to help guide the placement of seeds. The seeds emit radiation that dissipates over a few months.

What are the side effects of brachytherapy?

Side effects of brachytherapy can include swelling, bruising, bleeding, or pain and discomfort at the spot where the radiation was delivered. Brachytherapy used for gynecologic cancers or prostate cancer can lead to short-term urinary symptoms, including incontinence or pain on urination.

What radioactive source is used in brachytherapy?

Some radioactive sources used for brachytherapy are iridium-192 (half-life = 74.17 days), iodine-125 (half-life = 60.25 days), and palladium-103 (half-life = 16.96 days). These radionuclides have relatively short half-lives, permitting brachytherapy seeds to be inserted into a cancerous tumor and never removed.

How many times can you have brachytherapy?

You may have treatment twice a day for 2 to 5 days or once a week for 2 to 5 weeks. The schedule depends on your type of cancer. During the course of treatment, your catheter or applicator may stay in place, or it may be put in place before each treatment.

How do you feel after brachytherapy?

Brachytherapy can make you feel very tired and physically weak. This is called fatigue. It is not like usual tiredness – you may feel exhausted after doing nothing. This is simply your body responding to the treatment, as it tries to repair any healthy cells the brachytherapy has damaged.

How does brachytherapy make you feel?

Are you put to sleep for brachytherapy?

The implant procedure is usually done in a hospital operating room designed to keep the radiation inside the room. You’ll get anesthesia, which may be either general (where drugs are used to put you into a deep sleep so that you don’t feel pain) or local (where part of your body is numbed).

How long does it take to get over brachytherapy?

Radioactive seed brachytherapy. Small, radioactive metal ‘seeds’ are placed in the prostate and stay there permanently. They slowly release radiation until it has been used up. The radiation will be completely gone after 6 months.