RADIATION THERAPY

Radiation therapyas a primary treatment is a excellent treatment choice for women who have early stage breast cancer. This procedure allows a woman to keep her breast and involves lumpectomy followed by radiation (x-ray) treatment.

The treatment consists of high-energy rays or particles that destroy cancer cells ( fast dividing cells). Radiation therapy may be used to kill any cancer cells that remain in the breast, chest wall, or underarm area after breast-conserving surgery. Radiation may also be needed after mastectomy in patients with either a cancer larger than 5 cm in size, or when cancer is found in more than three of the lymph nodes.

Radiation therapy can be given in 2 main ways.

External beam radiation

This is the most common type of radiation therapy for women with breast cancer. The radiation is focused from a machine outside the body on the area affected by the cancer.

Accelerated breast irradiation: The standard radiation approach of 5 day a week over many weeks can be inconvenient for many women. Some doctors are now using other schedules, such as giving slightly larger daily doses over only 3 weeks, which seems to work about as well. Giving radiation in larger doses using fewer treatments is known as hypofractionated radiation therapy. Newer approaches now being studied give radiation over an even shorter period of time. In one approach, larger doses of radiation are given each day, but the course of radiation is shortened to only 5 days.Acceperated Partial Breast Irradiation. (Brachytherapy)

 In another approach, known as intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT), a single large dose of radiation is given in the operating room right after lumpectomy (before the breast incision is closed).