[ RadSafe ] Facts: breast cancer, "radioactive wires implanted", "localized seeds"

[John Jacobus]

Franz
There are two kinds of implants, permanent and
temporary.  Seeds implanted into the prostate are
permanent.  After-loaders place and later remove
radioactive seeds temporarily into the body.  Austria
may not be putting temporary implants into breast, but
we are in the U.S.

And if you and Sandy want to "duke it out," please do
so off-line.

--- Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
wrote:

> RADSAFErs,
> 
> An implant is something which is introduced into the
> body to stay there and
> not to be removed. Examples: in a hip replacement
> the implant is (hopefully)
> never to be removed, as well as a dental implant.
> Nowhere in this world any
> radioactive wire or seeds are implanted into any
> breast. Hopefully everybody
> (everybody!) has understood this fact. In prostate
> cancer seeds are actually
> implanted, though they are after some time excreted.
> 
> 
> Next: The person I called an "expert" has
> distributed a few articles about
> treatment of breast cancer - and thereby given
> himself the final prove that
> he was wrong in every respect - see below.
> 
> I called a good old friend who works for the
> Austrian Ministry of Health and
> is in charge of all medical applications of
> isotopes, accelerators and X-ray
> machines in order to make sure whether my
> understanding was correct. She
> told me that nowhere in Austria or all of Europe
> anything is implanted into
> a breast or a treatment method is applied like
> sticking dozens of needles
> (catheters) into the breast of a patient, send her
> home and let her come
> every day to the hospital to be treated with
> radioactive wire or seeds or
> maybe having these needles with low activity in the
> breast for a prolonged
> time. Even in the latter case I can hardly imagine
> that the patient would
> want to visit a baseball game - obviously the
> "expert" is not of this
> opinion. 
> 
> What is sometimes used indeed is the use of high
> doses. 12 to 20 needles are
> stuck in a carefully according to the tumor
> localization determined pattern
> into the breast and a relatively highly radioactive
> iridium source is
> transported from an afterloading system into them
> one by one for a few
> seconds. In most cases one treatment is sufficient,
> in a few cases depending
> on the tumor it has to be repeated. After the
> treatment the needles are
> removed and in most cases the patient can go home.
> If the patient would
> really want to visit a baseball game, she would not
> give the slightest
> signal on a radioactivity monitor because of lack of
> any radioactive
> material. Again I hope that this reasoning has been
> understood, even by the
> "expert". 
> 
> Finally a very short notice on the highly ridiculous
> comments and personal
> attacks of the "expert" - to which I am used:
> 
> 

+++++++++++++++++++
"All of the old-timers knew that subprime mortgages were what we called neutron loans --  they killed the people and left the houses. . . .
"LOUIS S. BARNES, a partner at Boulder West, a mortgage banking firm.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


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