Less radiation is needed for people with non-metastatic breast cancer

Additional high-dose radiation is just as effective as the usual five lower-dose radiation treatments. For example, patients with non-metastatic breast cancer receive forty percent less radiation and require fewer hospital visits. This is the conclusion of a study by Iridium Network today.

Iridium Network is a Belgian radiotherapy network. It bundles seven hospitals from Antwerp and Waasland. “Most hospitals still work with five to fifteen regular doses and five to eight boost doses for radiotherapy,” it said. “But the one-off ‘boost radiation’ after breast-conserving surgery works just as well as the standard treatment.”

With the new approach, patients with breast cancer where no nodes are affected need six radiation treatments: five regular doses to the breast and a ‘boost’ to the region where the tumor was. The cosmetic results (what the breast looks like after radiation, ed.) would also be comparable according to the research.

More than 11,000 women in Belgium develop breast cancer every year. About seventy percent is irradiated. The Iridium study involved 132 patients with breast cancer. It was examined whether the women needed an additional ‘boost’ after breast irradiation. When this was the case, the women were randomly given either five regular doses or one high-dose boost.

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