Authors' recommendations: An estimated 226,870 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the United States during 2012 and there will be an estimated 39,510 deaths due to the disease. Studies have shown that, for patients with early-stage disease, breast-conserving surgery combined with radiotherapy provides the same local tumor control and overall survival rates as mastectomy, and therefore, it is considered a standard of care for stages I and II breast cancer. Standard postoperative radiotherapy after lumpectomy and lymph node assessment for early-stage disease is whole-breast radiation therapy (WBRT) involving external delivery of a total dose of 45 to 50 Gy (Grays) from an electron or photon beam linear accelerator. The dose is usually administered in daily fractions of 1.8 to 2.0 Gy, 5 days per week for approximately 6 weeks. While radiation therapy reduces the risk of local recurrence and increases survival following breast-conserving therapy, the time commitment and logistics of traveling to a cancer center to undergo WBRT can be challenging. Accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) was developed as an alternative to WBRT to overcome these treatment barriers. APBI treats the area of the breast at highest risk for recurrence, i.e., only the lumpectomy bed plus a 1- to 2-cm (centimeter) margin, rather than the whole breast in patients with early-stage breast cancer. Since a smaller volume of tissue is treated, patients receive a higher radiation dose in a shorter period of time, typically twice a day for about 1 week. High-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy involves the application of a high dose of radiation via a catheter or tube to the lumpectomy bed as an outpatient procedure over a short period of time. APBI typically uses radioactive isotope sources, e.g., iridium-192 (192Ir), which requires a shielded radiation vault and an HDR afterloader unit. An emerging alternative for APBI is electronic brachytherapy (EBT), which uses electronic sources instead of radioactive isotopes and produces low-energy radiation at an HDR. The potential advantages of EBT are disposability of the source after use and a lesser requirement for protective shielding during the procedure.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2012

URL for published report: http://www.hayesinc.com/hayes/crd/?crd=13424

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: United States

Organisation Name: HAYES, Inc.

Contact Address: 157 S. Broad Street, Suite 200, Lansdale, PA 19446, USA. Tel: 215 855 0615; Fax: 215 855 5218

Contact Name: saleinfo@hayesinc.com

Contact Email: saleinfo@hayesinc.com

Copyright: 2011 Winifred S. Hayes, Inc