Officers
Based on the international recommendations as the American Brachytherapy Society, is to maintain Brachytherapy services for patients. BT service in National Oncology Centre, Royal Hospital, Muscat, has not stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brachytherapy is a critical treatment for gynecological patients. The cervical cancer patients and any higher risk patients undergoing a combination of external beam radiation and brachytherapy should not be delayed under any circumstances for patients not displaying COVID-19 symptoms. However, during this global pandemic, the precautions should be done and followed in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus while maintaining all opportunities to recovery for all patients.
The periodic maintenance and QAs for the HDR afterloader was done to avoid any interruption during patient treatment. To shorten the treatment time and patient exposures, the Radiation Oncology Medical Physicists and Medical Engineer under the supervision of the Radiation Protection Advisor from Radiation Protection Service, MoH, changed the old HDR source and replaced, in addition, the acceptance tests of new HDR sources were done. All these producers were done with the optimal safety precautions recommended by the World Health Organization.
Dr Zakiya AL Rahbi
Sr. Specialist Medical Physicist (A)
National Oncology Center, The Royal Hospital
Muscat, Oman
Brachytherapy is a critical treatment for gynecological patients. The cervical cancer patients and any higher risk patients undergoing a combination of external beam radiation and brachytherapy should not be delayed under any circumstances for patients not displaying COVID-19 symptoms. However, during this global pandemic, the precautions should be done and followed in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus while maintaining all opportunities to recovery for all patients.
The periodic maintenance and QAs for the HDR afterloader was done to avoid any interruption during patient treatment. To shorten the treatment time and patient exposures, the Radiation Oncology Medical Physicists and Medical Engineer under the supervision of the Radiation Protection Advisor from Radiation Protection Service, MoH, changed the old HDR source and replaced, in addition, the acceptance tests of new HDR sources were done. All these producers were done with the optimal safety precautions recommended by the World Health Organization.
Dr Zakiya AL Rahbi
Sr. Specialist Medical Physicist (A)
National Oncology Center, The Royal Hospital
Muscat, Oman
