Research highlights benefit of shortened radiation course for patients with DCIS

Findings by a researcher at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) highlighting the benefit of a shortened radiation course for patients with the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer are part of a feature article in the journal Cancer due out tomorrow. Sharad Goyal, MD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, is the lead investigator on the research, which focuses on patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who have had a lumpectomy. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

In DCIS, the cancer cells are inside the milk ducts of the breast but have not spread to surrounding breast tissue. In a previous study (Intergroup Study E5194) by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, radiation therapy was withheld from a low-risk subset of patients with DCIS after removal of the cancer. At five years, the local recurrence rate for low- and intermediate-grade patients was 6.1 percent and 15.3 percent for high-grade patients.

The current study, conducted by Dr. Goyal; senior author Bruce G. Haffty, MD, chair of radiation oncology at CINJ and professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; and colleagues looked at 70 patients between 2002 and 2004 who met the enrollment criteria for the previous study.

Following lumpectomy, patients in the new study were offered accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI), which is a one-week course of treatment that targets the specific area of the breast cavity where the cancer was removed. Investigators found that compared to the previous study, where radiation therapy was withheld, APBI greatly reduced the rate of local recurrence for low-risk DCIS patients (zero percent compared to 6.1 percent for low- to intermediate-grade patients and 5.3 percent compared to 15.3 percent for high-grade patients).

Source: The Cancer Institute of New Jersey