This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Short course of post-mastectomy radiation shows promise for breast cancer
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
A short course of postmastectomy radiation therapy high local control low toxicity and reduced treatment time by half for women with breast cancer, according to results from a phase 2 prospective study.
Atif J. Khan , MD, at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and colleagues noted that traditional postmastectomy radiation therapy often requires five or six weeks.
“Receiving radiation for that long of a period becomes a quality of life issue for many patients,” Bruce G. Haffty, MD, professor and chair of the department of radiation oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute said in a press release accompanying the study. “This includes the inconvenience of frequent travel to the treatment facility, as well as fatigue and other common side effects that can cause lost time at work and other challenges.”
The researchers treated 69 women with stage II to stage IIIa breast cancer with an accelerated course of postmastectomy radiation therapy a 36.63-Gy dose at 3.33 Gy to the chest wall and drain regional lymph nodes over the course of 11 days, along with an optional mastectomy scar boost of four fractions of 3.33 Gy.
bsence of toxicities of grade 3 or higher with predefined toxicity thresholds allowing for early stopping
eligible. edian follow-up was 32 months.
No patients experienced grade 3 toxicities; however, 29 experienced grade 2 toxicitieskin toxicities the most frequent (n = 16; 24%). Two patients experienced isolated ipsilateral chest wall tumor recurrences (3%).
Overall, the -year local recurrence-free survival rate was 89.2% (95% CI, 0.74-0.95), -year distant recurrencefree survival was 90.3% (95% CI, 0.797-0.956).
Forty-one women underwent chest wall reconstruction. Three expanders removed before starting radiation therapy because of infection.
Nearly one-fourth of patients experienced implant loss or failure (24%; n = 9 of 38), another 8% had unplanned surgical corrections, bringing the total complication rate to 32%.
“While shorter courses of radiation therapy have been adopted in patients receiving radiation therapy to the breast alone after lumpectomy, there has not been adoption of shorter courses of treatment to the chest wall and lymph nodes after mastectomy,” Haffty said in the press release. “This trial demonstrated the safety of this shorter course approach in a prospective phase 2 study.”
The researchers added that they have designed a phase prospective randomized trial on the basis of their findings. – by Andy Polhamus
Disclosure: Khan reports research funding from Cianna Medical and Elekta. Please see the study for a list of all other researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts