Doctors have known for years that radiation treatment following a lumpectomy for breast cancer reduces the risk of disease recurrence.
But many women find the traditional regimen - six weeks of five daily treatments that irradiate the entire breast - difficult and inconvenient.
Advertisement
Doctors for years have also offered women shorter courses of radiation therapy, including three methods of partial-breast irradiation with good track records that require only five days of treatment.
Comparing short and long
Now, for the first time, a large-scale federal study is under way to compare the traditional six-week approach to the shorter regimens.
"All of these shorter therapies are available," said Dr Frank Vicini, principal investigator for the US National Cancer Institute study that has enrolled more than half of the 3 000 women with early stage breast cancer needed to complete the study. But, he added, there hasn't been a scientific trial to compare, head to head, the longer, traditional treatment program with the shorter ones.
"The trial will allow us to say partial-breast radiation is equal or not to whole breast radiation," said Vicini, chief of oncology at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.
Convenience plays a role
When it comes to a woman's decision about breast cancer treatment, "convenience does play a role," Vicini said. The six-week regimen is viewed as difficult and time-consuming by some patients, he said.
The study results will be of interest to many women, because approximately 70 percent to 75 percent of patients diagnosed with breast cancer are candidates for lumpectomies, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Radiation is typically recommended as part two of the treatment, in order to reduce recurrence risk.
One of the three types of short-term treatment being studied by Vicini's team is a balloon brachytherapy system, called MammoSite, that was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2002. It involves the placement of a balloon in the breast where the tumour was. A single tube then delivers radiation into the balloon and repeats the therapy daily for five days. After that, the balloon is removed.
Another regimen is interstitial brachytherapy, also called multi-catheter therapy. It's an older system that can use as many as 20 catheters, inserted into the breast to deliver radiation to the site of the tumour. The third approach is called 3-D conformal partial breast irradiation, and it involves focusing external beam radiation on the tumour site, not the whole breast.
Women must have a tumour no more than 3 centimetres in diameter and no more than three lymph nodes that are cancerous. "One of the big goals, besides seeing if we can reduce the side effects common to traditional therapy, is to see if by making it more convenient, will we improve the use of breast-conserving therapy [the lumpectomy and radiation regimen] in women who are candidates," Vicini said. – (HealthDayNews)
Bookmark with:
What are social bookmarks?