Radiation Therapy
While two large studies suggest that intraoperative radiation therapy offers about the same overall survival and rates as whole-breast external beam radiation therapy for certain women diagnosed with early stage-breast cancer, there are concerns about local recurrence rates.
A research letter estimates that modern radiation therapy techniques are less likely to cause heart problems than radiation therapy techniques used 20 or more years ago.
A study has found that women diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer who are treated with chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation have better survival rates than women who don't receive all three treatments.
Early results suggest that treating just the area around where a cancer used to be with radiation may be as good as treating the whole breast with radiation.
Women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in one breast who are treated with lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy have the same survival rates as women who are treated with double mastectomy.
Hypofractionated radiation after lumpectomy offers better quality of life than conventional schedule.
A study suggests that women 67 and older diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer are more satisfied cosmetically with lumpectomy and brachytherapy compared to other treatment options.
For women diagnosed with early-stage disease with a low risk of recurrence, brachytherapy seems to offer the same cosmetic results as whole-breast radiation and causes fewer late side effects.
A study found that many women diagnosed with breast cancer that has spread to four or more lymph nodes don't get radiation therapy after mastectomy, even though oncology guidelines recommend it.
A new study shows that women who smoked and got radiation therapy to treat breast cancer had a much higher risk of lung cancer later on compared to women who got radiation and didn't smoke.
Surgeons' characteristics seem to affect whether women receive radiation therapy after lumpectomy.
New research shows that a shorter, but more intensive, course of radiation therapy may be just as effective as current treatment plans for women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
Research suggests that many women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer don't understand the differences in risks and benefits between mastectomy and lumpectomy and radiation therapy.
Women who had lumpectomy to treat an initial breast cancer and then had lumpectomy again to treat breast cancer that came back in the same breast had lower survival rates in the 10 years after the second surgery compared to women who had lumpectomy as the first surgery and then mastectomy as the second surgery.
A small study suggests that reconstruction done immediately after mastectomy using tissue from the body offers better results after radiation compared to immediate reconstruction using implants.
In a small study, internal radiation after lumpectomy didn't cause the capsules of existing breast implants to contract, leading to good cosmetic results.
A small study has found that a specific type of counseling called cognitive behavioral therapy, along with hypnosis, can help ease the fatigue that often can be a side effect of radiation therapy to treat breast cancer.
Research suggests that giving BOTH chemotherapy and radiation therapy before surgery to remove locally advanced breast cancer can help reduce the risk of the cancer coming back in the breast area in the 5 years after surgery.
New research suggests that routinely removing the axillary lymph nodes during surgery to remove early-stage breast cancer may not make sense for many women.
Research suggests that internal mammary node radiation for women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer that is large and/or has spread to the lymph nodes doesn't reduce recurrence risk or improve survival.
In a study of women who'd been diagnosed with early breast cancer, local recurrence happened 35% less often in those who were treated with chemotherapy and radiation at the same time rather than sequentially (one after the other).
A large study has found that many women treated with brachytherapy were not good candidates for that form of radiation therapy based on the characteristics of the breast cancer with which they were diagnosed.
A study found that radiation therapy given after DCIS is removed by lumpectomy reduces the risk that the DCIS will come back.
More than half of women who have breast cancer surgery have continuing pain a year after surgery, according to a Finnish study.