Institute of Materials Physics and Engineering, Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Elisa Fiume
Institute of Materials Physics and Engineering, Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Sara Ciavattini
Institute of Materials Physics and Engineering, Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Saeid Kargozar
Tissue Engineering Research Group (TERG), Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad 917794-8564, Iran
Roger Borges
Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, 09210-580 Santo André, SP, Brazil
Luis A. Genova
Centro de Ciência e Tecnologia dos Materiais, Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, 05508-000 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
Juliana Marchi
Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, 09210-580 Santo André, SP, Brazil
Enrica Verné
Institute of Materials Physics and Engineering, Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
The fight against cancer is an old challenge for mankind. Apart from surgery and chemotherapy, which are the most common treatments, use of radiation represents a promising, less invasive strategy that can be performed both from the outside or inside the body. The latter approach, also known as brachytherapy, relies on the use of implantable beta-emitting seeds or microspheres for killing cancer cells. A set of radioactive glasses have been developed for this purpose but their clinical use is still mainly limited to liver cancer. This review paper provides a picture of the biomedical glasses developed and experimented for brachytherapy so far, focusing the discussion on the production methods and current limitations of the available options to their diffusion in clinical practice. Highly-durable neutron-activatable glasses in the yttria-alumina-silica oxide system are typically preferred in order to avoid the potentially-dangerous release of radioisotopes, while the compositional design of degradable glass systems suitable for use in radiotherapy still remains a challenge and would deserve further investigation in the near future.
