Shorter Radiation Therapy For Breast Cancer

Currently radiation therapy extending to 5 weeks or more is often given to breast cancer patients after lumpectomy. This prolonged course of radiation therapy often causes hardship for many breast cancer patients. Over the years researchers have been trying various alternative methods of delivery of radiation, aimed at cutting the duration of radiation therapy of breast cancer.

In a recently published article a team of researchers from U.K. is showing that fewer but larger doses of radiotherapy may be a safe and effective way to treat breast cancer. These UK researchers have found that giving 13 larger doses was as effective for breast cancer prevention compared to the regular way of treating with 25 small doses extending over a period of 5 weeks. This new research finding could lead to more convenient way of radiation therapy of breast cancer for thousands of breast cancer patients.

This study, which spanned for a period of 10 years was done by researches from Cancer Research UK and involved 1,410 women. These research findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Lancet Oncology.

The research was a collaboration between the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Gloucestershire Oncology Centre, The Institute of Cancer Research and the University of Wisconsin.

Researchers believe that a reduction in the number of hospital visits could lessen anxiety for patients and save valuable time and money spent on traveling to and from hospital.




Posted by: Janet    Source