ABSTRACT
The Lecture covers the author’s personal experience in brachytherapy in radiation oncology, beginning with low-dose rate (LDR) treatments using 226Ra “hot” sources, in the 1960s and early 1970s, through manual afterloading for treating gynaecological cancers with the same sources in the 1970s and 1980s, to high-dose rate (HDR) remote afterloading on a microSelectron HDR machine, from 1989 on. This progression in brachytherapy is discussed, and specific applications to various tumour sites are presented, including long-term results of a personal series of 106 patients with cancer of the uterine cervix, treated with radiotherapy incorporating HDR brachytherapy. The Lecture rounds off with an unusual case of equine sarcoid, treated with a postoperative implant, using 192Ir LDR brachytherapy.
Dr Tan Kim Ping, Chairman for the Dr FY Khoo Memorial Lecture, Ladies and Gentlemen – It is a signal honour for me to deliver this Lecture, the second since the Inaugural Lecture last year. Sadly, it has been renamed a Memorial Lecture, as Dr FY Khoo passed away a few months ago, towards the end of 2004. By right, the honour should go to Dr Tan Ban Cheng, who is the most senior Radiation Oncologist in Singapore. However, he had to decline the invitation on grounds of poor health, and I am in a sense giving this Lecture on his behalf. I am also grateful to Dr Chua Eu Jin for his very kind remarks in the citation he read preceding the Lecture.
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