Image-Guided Brachytherapy: Follow-Up. Imaging and Clinical Management

Imaging and clinical management together play a key role in follow-up after image-guided brachytherapy (iBT). Individual and detailed patient management is planned in the outpatient clinic. An important function of this is the acquisition of patients, where the outpatient clinic mediates the first contact between patient and interventional radiologist and the interdisciplinary oncology team. Organization includes an administrative and medical function. An interdisciplinary setting is of key importance for optimum treatment. Coordination with a radiation oncology iBT expert is a prerequisite for a successful intervention. A radiology ward is a clear example of this. Such a unit is ideally suited for comprehensive patient care because of clinical exchanges with other departments—for example, with internistic or oncological departments. In order to ensure standardized and adequate therapy, it is important to develop different standardized procedures throughout the years. If these are to be tailored to the needs of the individual patient, with short inpatient stays, extremely well-structured procedures must be developed and adhered to.