Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Dear Friends and Brachytherapy Fellows,
It is my great honor and pleasure to use the opportunity to communicate with you via this Editorial. Currently, in Poland, the pandemic is again on its third, steeply growing wave of active infections. Till now, it already took over 58 thousand lives, which makes us all sad. Many patients delayed their diagnosis and showed up with more advanced cancer, leading to unpreceded and undesired premature deaths. Many countries face problems with vaccine accessibility. Fortunately, in the Greater Poland Cancer Centre, where I usually offer brachytherapy treatment, about 95% of the staff was fully vaccinated. We feel secure, treating cancer almost the same way as before, except necessary precautions, and I wish all of you and your patients to feel the same way.
The JCB 2/2021 contains eight clinical papers, three physics contributions, one case report, one pictorial essay, and two reviews. Let me start and highlight two fantastic reviews submitted lately, which found their place, one next to another, at the end of the issue. Both summarize the current knowledge of the guidelines and recommendations on managing uterine cancer with vaginal cuff interventional radiotherapy (brachytherapy). Krystyna Serkies et al. (Polish Brachytherapy Society, Gdansk) present recent evidence on the most common endometrial cancer. In turn, Francesca de Felice et al. (Italy) systematically review the rare histological types of uterine malignancies, e.g., carcinosarcoma, clear cell, and papillary serous carcinomas. Intentionally, I designed our cover with figures and photos from the case report submitted by Xiaokun Hu et al. from Qingdao University, China. In my opinion, their innovative approach based on CT-MRI fusion images and intra-operative hologram usage, with mixed MRI reality guidance for neuro-navigated interstitial iodine seeds implantation, is truly outstanding.
The issue opens with two clinical manuscripts focused on ocular melanoma. David Miguel et al. (Valladolid, Spain) analyze the regression rates and local control of uveal melanomas for a large group of patients treated with 125I plaques, based on the initial tumor apical height. Also from Spain, Antonio Piñeiro Ces et al. advises on the adoption of intra-operative ultrasound control to improve the accuracy of radioactive plaque placement for the treatment of medium-small uveal melanomas located posteriorly. The technique should probably be applied in...


View full text...