Seed fixity in the prostate/periprostatic region following brachytherapy.

PURPOSE Although postoperative dosimetric analyses of prostate brachytherapy are commonly reported, the long-term persistence, or fixity, of seeds implanted in the prostate gland and periprostatic region remains unclear, with only a few reports regarding the loss or migration of the seeds in the implanted region and none which correlate lung embolization to pelvic seed loss. METHODS AND MATERIALS The study population consisted of 175 consecutive patients implanted with either 125I (95 patients) or 103Pd (80 patients) using a mean of 136 seeds in a modified uniform loading approach to cover a planning volume that was 1.64 times the ultrasound prostate volume. An average of 64% of 125I seeds were embedded in braided vicryl suture, and these seeds were used on the periphery and extra prostatic regions. Following CT-based dosimetric analysis on day 0, all patients had orthogonal plain films of the pelvis obtained from day 0 to day 502, with an average of 2.3 film pairs per patient. Routine diagnostic PA and lateral chest X rays were obtained for 156 patients over the same time period. RESULTS The mean pelvic seed fixity was greater than 98% throughout the time covered by this study. The seed fixity rates for 125I and 103Pd, although nearly equal, were significantly different up to 60 days post implant. The median 125I seed loss per patient was only 1 seed through 180 days while for 103Pd, the median seed loss was 2 seeds at 28 and 60 days and 3 seeds at 180 days. The fraction of patients experiencing no seed loss decreased from 40% at 28 days to 20% at 180 days for 125I and from 24% to 7% for 103Pd over the same time interval. Patient and treatment parameters closely correlated to local seed loss include the number of seeds implanted, the planning volume, and the number of loose seeds, and for 125I, the fraction of seeds in suture. The fraction of seeds placed outside the gland was not correlated with seed loss. Of the seeds lost from the pelvis, about 10% were found to embolize to the lungs. Among the 156 patients with post-implant chest X rays, the fraction of patients with pulmonary seed embolization was 34/156 (21.8%). Of the 20 patients who had post-implant chest X rays obtained within 14 days of brachytherapy, none had seeds detected in the lungs, while of the 136 patients who had chest X rays obtained greater than 30 days following implantation, 25.0% (34 patients) were noted to have seeds visualized in the lungs. CONCLUSIONS With a median follow-up of 9 months, 125I seeds embedded in a vicryl suture or 103Pd seeds can be safely implanted in the prostate and periprostatic tissue with a high probability of prostate bed seed fixity and a low incidence of radioactive seed embolization to the lungs.