Brachytherapy seed deployment system

DETAILED DESCRIPTION One aspect of the present invention is to enable brachytherapy needles to be preloaded with radioactive seeds and spacers, organized, packaged and shipped sterile in quantities prescribed on a per order basis.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide one prescription in one shipper.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide a system that allows for at least about 10% of the seeds to be assayed for activity without affecting the sterility of the pre-loaded seeds for implantation.
Yet another aspect of the invention is to provide a system that allows for the addition of about two extra needles for insertion of extra seeds in order to accommodate unforeseen adjustments in the procedure.
Another aspect of the invention is to eliminate the preparation time at the clinical site of loading and sterilizing the seeds as required in the past.
Yet another aspect is to reduce operator exposure to radiation to a minimum and to reduce Operating Room use, thus reducing costs.
Another aspect of the present invention is to reduce the amount of paper work required by the hospital by reducing the invoicing, ordering and stocking from four individual products to one.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide a system that optimizes the needle layout by arranging the needles in order by needle number previously prescribed in the treatment plan.
Yet another aspect of the invention is to provide a system that allows the user to remove any one of the needles at any time during the procedure and does not require that the needles be unloaded sequentially thus providing the physician with flexibility during the procedure without adding concern about potentially damaging the pre-loaded needles.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide pre-loaded sleeves having a marker corresponding to the number of seeds in the sleeve.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide pre-loaded sleeves identified with their corresponding needle numbers according to the pre-planned prescription information