Cancer Treatment Options Forum - October 4th, 2010 - 4 Comments
For patient with Breast Cancer, when would you give radiation therapy?
Medically speaking, if a patient comes to you with breast cancer, when would you use radiation therapy? What stages? At what point, after mastectomy?, etc When do you would know to use radiation therapy?? Any help would be great, if you have a article on this (professional) that would be great!! Thanks
Radiation for breast cancer is used for CURATIVE purposes in Stage I-III cancers. For Stage IV breast cancer, radiation is for palliative purposes only.
Breast radiation is almost always used after a lumpectomy (occasionally for older women, >70 years old, then radiation is sometimes skipped).
After mastectomy, radiation is usually recommended for: T3-T4 disease (ie the primary tumor >5cm), 4+ lymph nodes (sometimes 1-3+ lymph nodes–depends on other factors), close/positive margins (meaning the tumor was very close or at the edge of the surgical specimen).
Regarding timing–radiation is usually given after surgery and chemotherapy. However, it can be given prior to chemotherapy–there’s no compelling evidence either way.
All I can speak from is personal experince. First you are worked up you get "staged" . Second is treatment . Typically you reciece several rounds of chemo then more cat scans. After chemo they may do surgery to remove and remaining tumor. Last is radiation therapy . This is usually to "cook" the area where the cancer tumor was to kill off any unseen remaining cells. Now comes recovery and waiting, Good Luck.
It varies depending on the type of breast cancer and the stage.
In my case I had surgery followed by chemotherapy with radiation overlapping the 3rd and 4th round of chemo.
It really depends on the stage and grade of the breast cancer as well as what the report from the surgery states. Radiation is very effective at treating a wide range of stages.
I found this website answers your question quite well:
http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/radiation/when_appropriate.jsp
Radiation is used to treat the area to destroy any of the microscopic cancer cells that remain after the tumour has been removed. The treatment area is decided by your doc after a CT scan (or xray called fluoroscopy) is taken. Your treatment team is there for you to ask any questions along the way.
Good luck!