Findings support shorter course of radiation therapy after lumpectomy.(Brief Article)

2002 SEP 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A shorter, more convenient course of radiation therapy after breast lumpectomy appears to be just as effective as the longer, more standard, regimen, according to new research appearing in the August 7, 2002, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Radiation therapy after a lumpectomy substantially reduces the risk of breast cancer recurrence. However, researchers have not come to a consensus about the most appropriate length of radiation therapy that a patient should receive. In the United States, radiation is delivered in smaller doses over a several weeks, but in the United Kingdom and Canada, larger doses of radiation are delivered over a shorter period of time.

To determine which strategy is most effective, Timothy Whelan, BM, BCh, MSc, of the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre in Ontario, and his colleagues compared breast cancer recurrence and cosmetic outcome among 1234 women randomly assigned to receive either a more intensive course of radiation over 22 days or a less intensive regimen over 35 days. All of the women had undergone lumpectomies for invasive breast cancers that had not spread to the lymph nodes.

Nearly 6 years later, the shortened course did not result in increased recurrence of breast cancer or result in a worse cosmetic outcome. Local recurrence-free survival at 5 years was 97.2% in the group receiving a shorter course of therapy, ...