Brachytherapy (or internal radiotherapy ) is a type of tumor radiotherapy, which involves placing radioactive material inside the body near the tumor to be treated.
Treatment of short duration and limited to the area of interest (therefore with minimal involvement of healthy tissues), brachytherapy is adopted on the occasion of tumors of the biliary tract, breast, uterine cervix, endometrium, eyes and brain. prostate, penis, vagina, skin, lung and urinary tract.
The first applications of brachytherapy (or something that recalls this type of treatment) date back to 1901, just five years later (1896) the discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel.
The idea of placing a radioactive source near a tumor to reduce the size of the tumor belongs to Henri-Alexandre Danlos and Pierre Curie .
In reality, however, always in the same years and on his own, even Alexander Graham Bell thought about the use of radioactive material, to counteract the spread of tumors.
In any case, however, the early years of the 20th century were marked by experiments on brachytherapy : at the Curie Institute in Paris, Danlos and, at Memorial Hospital in New York, Robert Abbe developed different application techniques.
Around the 1930s, the effects of radium were tested; subsequently, between 1942 and 1952, gold seeds covered with radon were used; after the Second World War, small radon cobalt needles were tested, but these were soon replaced by gold and tantalum elements.
In 1958, iridium began to be used, which soon became the most used radioactive source.
It should be remembered that, starting from the middle of the twentieth century and for a few years afterwards, brachytherapy lost interest, because it was dangerous for operators handling radioactive material.
This lack of interest was overcome with the discovery of new materials, capable of adequately protecting from radioactivity, and of new techniques for the insertion of radioactive sources, techniques that included minimal contact with hazardous materials.
Today, brachytherapy is a safe and minimal risk method for the operator, the patient and for those who live with the patient .
