Brachytherapy used in treatment of the breast cancer

Brachytherapy is a method of radio-therapy which consists in radiation implementation from the source located directly into the tissue changed by a cancer or into its surrounding. Nowadays, there are two most popular techniques of brachytherapy used in treatment of the breast cancer: HDR - which means using high dose rate of radiation, and PDR - a pulsating brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is mainly recommended in radio-therapy when the breast conserving treatment surgery is carried out. In order to diagnose a cancer correctly one has to make particular examinations: a breast mam-mography, an X-ray of the breast and a computer tomography. A stage of the disease is assessed according to the TNM clas-sification. A breast cancer is the most often detected cancer among women in the developed countries, the incidence reaches about 25-30% of all cancers among women [18]. Most cancers are detected among women between the age of 45 and 65 [7]. Because screening programmes are becoming more popular and women’s awareness is becoming bigger much more sick people can be treated for a breast cancer successfully. Progress in the techniques of irradiation causes that brachytherapy is often used as a complement treatment, so called boost, targeted on a tumour bed after teleradiotherapy of a whole breast and as an independent radical treatment.