Since May 1985 till August 1987, the hemi-body irradiation technique was used on 29 patients at VÚKEO´s Radiotherapeutical Department, Brno. The patients selected for the treatment were those whom any other medical treatment methods had failed, in the late disease stage. Our intention was to provide palliative treatment, the primary objective being analgesy and thus, a survival improvement. In some cases, there even was a recession of the objective finding. The patients treatment consisted in irradiating upper halves of their bodies (7x2 Gy/body centre) for 8 days, or lower halves of their bodies (9x2 Gy/body centre) for 10 days, or the entire body over a 6-week time span. The irradiation procedure made use of a Chisostat cobalt irradiation unit the dosage power input of which was reduced.
The significance bulky irradiation in the palliative treatment of cancer
