Brachytherapy boost for prostate cancer: A national survey from Groupe curiethérapie – Société française de radiothérapie oncologique

Brachytherapy can be used for the treatment of every localized prostate cancer, notably as boost for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer. With the incidence of prostate cancer increasing significantly during the next decades and brachytherapy developing, we conducted a descriptive survey to analyse the current status of prostate brachytherapy in France to see if the future demands could be met. All radiotherapy centres that declared providing brachytherapy were found from the French national institute of cancer registry and they were asked to reply to an online form in April 2018. Fifty-two of the 54-brachytherapy centres (96%) replied the form and 34 centres did prostate brachytherapy. Among those centres, 32 performed iodine 125 low-dose rate brachytherapy as monotherapy, 19 provided brachytherapy boost (eight centres low-dose rate 125I; seven centres high-dose rate; four centres both). Among the centres not performing brachytherapy boost, 18 wanted to do, eight did not want and nine did not reply. The main reasons for reluctance towards brachytherapy boost were: organization constraints (three centres), refer patients to a nearby brachytherapy centre (one centre), technical issues (two centres) and lack of strong scientific evidences (two centres). In terms of human resources, the mean number of trained physicians and physicists were two (range: 1–6) and three (range: 1–5) respectively. In France, the future needs for prostate brachytherapy cannot be met by the current health supply. Health authorities should firstly reimburse brachytherapy boost and redefine an optimal training and organization of centres such that every patient with prostate cancer can receive optimal treatment. Actuellement, la curiethérapie de prostate peut être utilisée pour tous lcancers localisés de la prostate, notamment en complément d’irradiation pour ceux de pronostics intermédiaire ou défavorable. Son taux d’incidence augmentant significativement dans les prochaines décennies et l’utilisation de la curiethérapie se développant, nous avons réalisé une enquête nationale afin d’estimer l’offre de soin nécessaire pour subvenir aux besoins. Tous les centres ayant déclaré utiliser la curiethérapie à l’institut national du cancer ont été sollicités pour répondre à un questionnaire en ligne (avril 2018). Cinquante-deux des 54 centres (96 %) qui déclaraient délivrer de la curiethérapie ont répondu au questionnaire et 34 centres délivraient de la curiethérapie de prostate. Par