Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation seems best for easing pain caused by spots of metastatic cancer in the spine.

New guidelines strongly recommend partial-breast radiation after lumpectomy for many small, early-stage breast cancers with no lymph node involvement.

Research suggests that some younger post-menopausal women may be able to skip radiation after lumpectomy, but there are important points to consider.

If chemotherapy before surgery destroys cancer in the lymph nodes, radiation to the nodal area may not be needed.

An accelerated radiation schedule after breast reconstruction saves women time and money.

A study suggests that certain women might be able to skip radiation after lumpectomy, but there are important things to consider when interpreting the results.

Breast cancer treatment, especially radiation therapy, seems to speed up biological aging.

Pausing radiation therapy for triple-negative breast cancer for even just two days is linked to worse survival.

For women ages 65 and older diagnosed with small, early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, radiation after lumpectomy didn’t improve overall survival, but it did dramatically reduce the risk of recurrence.

Black people diagnosed with breast or prostate cancer were less likely to receive radiation on a shorter, or hypofractionated, schedule.

Treating early-stage breast cancer with radiation along with chemotherapy and hormonal therapy after lumpectomy lowers recurrence risk in the same breast, but doesn’t improve overall survival.

Delivering a boost dose of radiation during an accelerated schedule decreased overall treatment time and was just as effective at reducing recurrence risk as delivering a boost dose after the final treatment of a conventional radiation schedule.

A type of bandage called Mepitel Film reduced the risk of skin problems during and after radiation therapy for breast cancer.

After whole-breast radiation, a boost dose to the area where the tumor was further reduced the risk of moderate- or high-grade DCIS coming back.

Women ages 55 and older diagnosed with early-stage, estrogen receptor-positive, progesterone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer that had low levels of Ki67 protein and a very low risk of recurrence were able to safely skip radiation after lumpectomy.

During external whole-breast radiation therapy for breast cancer, women with large breasts who lay facedown had fewer skin side effects than women who lay faceup.

Women at high risk of arm and shoulder problems who started a physical therapist–led exercise program about a week after breast cancer surgery with no reconstruction had better upper arm mobility than women who received standard care.

Identifying and offering solutions for obstacles that kept people from completing radiation therapy for early-stage breast and lung cancer improved outcomes and seemed to eliminate the difference in survival rates between Black and white people.

Black women who are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer are 28% more likely to die from the disease than white women with the same diagnosis.

Lumpectomy plus radiation therapy offers better survival rates than mastectomy — with or without radiation — for women who are diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

Skipping sentinel lymph node biopsy and/or radiation therapy didn’t affect recurrence rates or survival for women age 70 and older diagnosed with early-stage, hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative, clinically node-negative breast cancer.

Some women age 65 and older diagnosed with early-stage hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer with a low risk of the cancer coming back who have lumpectomy followed by hormonal therapy treatment may be able to skip radiation therapy after surgery.

It's common for doctors to fail to understand the severity of radiation therapy side effects in women treated with radiation after lumpectomy, especially younger women and Black women.

A single dose of radiation therapy given during lumpectomy surgery offered about the same outcomes for early-stage breast cancer as traditional whole-breast radiation therapy given after surgery.