One week radiation treatment for breast cancer as effective as standard 6 to 7 week course

A new type of radiation treatment rapidly speeds up treatment for some breast cancer sufferers.

The treatment, Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI), takes just one week and has been found to be as effective as the standard six to seven weeks of radiation therapy.

APBI offers women with early-stage breast cancer a more convenient shorter radiation therapy option and is just as effective in stopping the return of the breast cancer as the standard external beam radiation treatment.

A study by Dr. Peter Beitsch from Medical City Hospital in Dallas, explains that the option not only makes radiation treatment much more convenient, it may actually increase the rate of breast conservation, because some women choose mastectomy because they live too far from a radiation center and cannot afford the time and expense of six to seven weeks of living or traveling to the center.

Dr. Beitsch, a surgical oncologist, says there are also many women who for a number of reasons do not receive the necessary postoperative radiation and the shortened course will hopefully allow more women to receive the therapy they need.

With cases of breast cancer many women are able to undergo breast conserving therapy to keep their breast after treatment which usually means they first have surgery to remove the cancer (a lumpectomy) followed by a course of radiation therapy to kill any cancer cells that may remain - the standard radiation therapy treatment takes a few minutes, every day, Monday through Friday, for six to seven weeks.

Brachytherapy is one of several methods of APBI, which treats only the area surrounding the tumour, instead of the whole breast.

During this type of breast brachytherapy, after the tumour has been removed from the breast, the doctor inserts a small balloon into the cavity, the balloon is then attached to a catheter that delivers high doses of radiation via tiny radioactive seeds into the lumpectomy cavity.

The American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBS) evaluated data from more than 1,400 women with early stage breast cancer who were treated with balloon brachytherapy using the MammoSite Radiation Therapy System, one type of breast brachytherapy.

For the study, 400 women were followed for nearly four years and it was found that women with early-stage breast cancer who are treated with APBI using this type of balloon brachytherapy had the same chance of the cancer returning as those who had the standard radiation treatment.

The study was presented this week at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's 50th Annual Meeting in Boston.

For more information on radiation therapy for breast cancer, visit www.rtanswers.org.