Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to write my second editorial letter to all of you. I write this words during fantastic ESTRO 38 Meeting in Milan which is very interesting, multidisciplinary and scientifically fruitful. I already met a lot of individuals devoted to brachytherapy and most of our Section Editors who remain real JCB creators and supporters. I am glad and satisfied to work with such honorable team of experts and practitioners in the field of brachytherapy.
Also, I cordially thank Bradley Pieters for a noble memory of the deceased Prof. Janusz Skowronek at the beginning of GEC-ESTRO General Assembly during ESTRO 38, Milan.
Last months I put some effort to reactivate and push forward the Educational Corner of JCB. And now it is my privilege to announce Dr. Agata Rembielak form the Christie Hospital, Manchester, UK, who was asked for and agreed to run this project along with me. All of you reading this letter that have the feeling and need to educate others in brachytherapy are invited to submit your ideas, letters, comments and own educational manuscripts.
I would also like to present to you a few new devoted Section Editors originating from Greater Poland Cancer Centre’s Brachytherapy Department which are two radiation oncologists Wojciech Burchardt MD, PhD and Artur Chyrek MD; and two medical physicists Grzegorz Zwierzchowski MSc, PhD and Grzegorz Bielęda MSc. All of them already proved their high quality editorial work and enabled better work distribution and diminish workload amongst all Co-Editors. Applause for them.
This year’s second issue opens with a hot topic manuscript on second breast cancer conservative treatment combined with interstitial brachytherapy based APBI salvage reirradiation. The paper is prepared by cooperative team from Italy and Spain. It turns out that managing breast recurrence with standard mastectomy may not be a necessity in well informed breast cancer patients. Then you are presented with Japanese work on a new approach in catheter-based delineation of lumpectomy cavity for accurate target definition in APBI with multicatheter brachytherapy. Later authors from Poland present median 3-years follow-up of adjuvant interstitial 3D based PDR brachytherapy in patients after unsatisfactory surgery of the lip cancer. Another four papers from Canada, Slovenia, Japan and Italy focus on gynecological aspects of treatment planning and brachytherapy delivery in different settings. Team from Magdeburg, Germany, comes with a challenging but feasible approach on extending the distance between tumor lesion and adjacent organs at risk using interventionally applied balloon catheters while irradiating liver malignomas. As in previous issue, also in this we present new data on the novel attempts of treating peripheral lung cancer with iridium source (China) or iodine implants (China and USA). Third Japanese manuscript answers how to deal with difficult and rare case of locally advanced cervical cancer in a bicornuate uterus with vaginal septum. And finally the issue closes with the Indian technical note on the impact of different dose prescription schedules on EQD2 in HDR intracavitary BT of cervical cancer.

All dear readers, have a nice lecture.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Chicheł, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Contemporary Brachytherapy