Shorter Breast Cancer Treatment Effective
One-Week Radiation Treatment Has Low Cancer Recurrence Rate Four Years After Treatment, Study Shows
Sept. 22, 2008 -- A breast cancer treatment protocol that involves just one week of radiation instead of six or seven looked highly promising in a four-year follow-up study, researchers say.
If proven as effective as conventional radiation, the procedure, known as accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI), could make breast conservation a more attractive option for early stage patients who now choose mastectomy to avoid radiation.
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© 2008 WebMD, LLC. All rightsreserved.
Only about half of women who are good candidates for breast-conserving surgery have it, and it is clear that lack of access to radiation facilities and length of radiation treatment are contributing factors.
"Some women live hundreds of miles from a radiation center or they feel they can't take seven weeks off from their jobs," Dallas breast surgeon Peter D. Beitsch, MD, tells WebMD. "These women often end up having mastectomies."
Approved by the FDA in 2002, the accelerated radiation protocol evaluated in the study is not widely used for the treatment of breast cancer.
Instead of irradiating the whole breast, the treatment focuses radiation at the site of the removed tumor using a special single balloon catheter that delivers the radiation through tiny radioactive seeds.
"It is fair to say that the technique is controversial in the radiation and oncology community, in part because we haven't had good long-term follow-up data on the patients who have had it," Beitsch says.
In an effort to address this concern, Beitsch and colleagues are following patients who have had the partial breast irradiation.
They reported on outcomes among the first 400 women in their registry Monday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston.
About four years after treatment, a little more than 2% of these early-stage patients who had breast-conserving surgery followed by the weeklong radiation regimen had recurrences of their cancer.
This recurrence rate is similar to that seen with more conventional whole-breast radiation, Beitsch says.
"Obviously, we will know more when we have been following these patients longer, but the early follow-up data are encouraging," he says.
Radiologist Phillip M. Devlin, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, agrees.
Devlin is chief of the division of brachytherapy at Brigham and Women's and an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School.
"These are preliminary results, but they suggest that outcomes for carefully selected patients are as good as those with full breast radiation," he says.
Shorter Breast Cancer Treatment Effective
One-Week Radiation Treatment Has Low Cancer Recurrence Rate Four Years After Treatment, Study Shows
Sept. 22, 2008 -- A breast cancer treatment protocol that involves just one week of radiation instead of six or seven looked highly promising in a four-year follow-up study, researchers say.
If proven as effective as conventional radiation, the procedure, known as accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI), could make breast conservation a more attractive option for early stage patients who now choose mastectomy to avoid radiation.
Cancer Videos
Video: Cancer andExercise
Video: MakingChemotherapy Safer
Video: Foods AfterCancer
All Cancer-RelatedVideos
Related Slideshows
Related to
lymphoma, leukemia, chemotherapy, radiation, mammogram, PSA test , colonoscopy, herceptin, tamoxifen, breast cancer -- Colposcopy, lung cancer, skin cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, colon cancer
© 2008 WebMD, LLC. All rightsreserved.
Only about half of women who are good candidates for breast-conserving surgery have it, and it is clear that lack of access to radiation facilities and length of radiation treatment are contributing factors.
"Some women live hundreds of miles from a radiation center or they feel they can't take seven weeks off from their jobs," Dallas breast surgeon Peter D. Beitsch, MD, tells WebMD. "These women often end up having mastectomies."
Accelerated Radiation Controversial
Approved by the FDA in 2002, the accelerated radiation protocol evaluated in the study is not widely used for the treatment of breast cancer.
Instead of irradiating the whole breast, the treatment focuses radiation at the site of the removed tumor using a special single balloon catheter that delivers the radiation through tiny radioactive seeds.
"It is fair to say that the technique is controversial in the radiation and oncology community, in part because we haven't had good long-term follow-up data on the patients who have had it," Beitsch says.
In an effort to address this concern, Beitsch and colleagues are following patients who have had the partial breast irradiation.
They reported on outcomes among the first 400 women in their registry Monday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston.
About four years after treatment, a little more than 2% of these early-stage patients who had breast-conserving surgery followed by the weeklong radiation regimen had recurrences of their cancer.
This recurrence rate is similar to that seen with more conventional whole-breast radiation, Beitsch says.
"Obviously, we will know more when we have been following these patients longer, but the early follow-up data are encouraging," he says.
Radiologist Phillip M. Devlin, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, agrees.
Devlin is chief of the division of brachytherapy at Brigham and Women's and an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School.
"These are preliminary results, but they suggest that outcomes for carefully selected patients are as good as those with full breast radiation," he says.
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