Brachytherapy of head and neck cancer

Abstract In the non-surgical treatment of head and neck tumours, the "organ preserving" modalities have become more and more important. At present radiotherapy is the most important means of this kind of treatment. In the radiotherapy of head and neck cancer local dose escalation is an important factor in increasing local tumour control. However, with sole external beam irradiation it is difficult to spare adjacent normal tissues. Interstitial brachytherapy (BT) is ideally suited to deliver a high dose limited to the volume of the primary tumour, thus maximizing tumour control while minimizing complications. Low-dose-rate (LDR) BT, which has been applied for a long time in the treatment of these tumours, is now challenged by high-dose-rate (HDR) and pulsed-dose-rate (PDR) BT. The purpose of this work is to show the role and the indications of BT in tumours of the head and neck region and to offer general and site-specific recommendations based upon the available information from the literature.