"Intra-operative radiotherapy with electron beam"

Surgery is in many cases the most effective therapy to eradicate tumors in the human body. It is applied effectively in cases of tumors with low production of metastasis. However since the early decades of the last century a large fraction of recurrence after the operation have been observed. The number of cases with the onset of recurrence greatly decreases when the region which underwent surgical resection is treated with radiotherapy. External beam radiation therapy with photons is currently the most widely used. The conformal techniques and the intensity modulated radiotherapy reduce but do not completely eliminate damage to healthy tissues traversed by the radiation. In cases where the tumor is located very close to radiosensitive normal tissues or in cases of cancer for which fractioned treatments are ineffective, external beam radiation becomes difficult to apply. The technique of intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) is effective in such cases as it allows direct visualization of the region to be irradiated after the removal of the lesion and it allows healthy tissue to be protected. The IORT technique consists in the delivering of a single high dose of radiation to the target volume, by shielding the healthy tissue, during the operation.