Brachytherapy is an Effective Treatment for Breast Cancer

Brachytherapy is an effective modality of treatment for breast cancer, according to a new study presented October 8, 2002, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

In the study, 199 women with early-stage breast cancer were treated per the guidelines of one of three protocols of tumor bed irradiation alone using either an interstitial low dose rate or high dose rate implant. One hundred and twenty patients were treated on an inpatient basis with a low dose rate implant, and the remaining were treated on an outpatient basis with a high dose rate implant. Every implant was designed to irradiate the lumpectomy cavity plus a 1 to 2 centimeter margin.

Patients ranged in age from 40 to 90 years, with the median age being 65. Median follow-up on all patients was 5.0 years (for the low dose rate patients, it was 6.3 years, and for the high dose rate patients, it was 3.1 years). For all patients, 129 (65 percent) have been followed for four or more years, 95 (48 percent) for five or more years and 70 (35 percent) for six or more years. Two true recurrences or marginal misses were observed with a five-year actuarial rate of 0.5 percent.

"Accelerated partial breast irradiation with interstitial brachytherapy techniques, either low dose rate or high dose rate, appears to produce five-year results comparable to conventional breast conservation therapy employing whole breast external beam radiation," said Peter Yale Chen, M.D., of the Department of Radiation Oncology at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., and lead author of the study. "Extended follow-up is still required to determine the long-term efficacy of this treatment approach."