Six Weeks of Radiation Therapy May Be Unnecessary for Many Breast Cancer Patients

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Many women with breast cancer may not need six weeks of daily radiation after surgery. This explosive finding was made public at the recent International Society of Intraoperative Radiation Therapy (ISIORT) conference held in Madrid, Spain earlier this month.

A Single Dose of Radiation is Enough

Renowned surgeon Dr. Umberto Veronesi, founder of the European Institute of Oncology, shared for the first time the results of a long-awaited, eight-year randomized trial comparing his breast cancer patients’ response to two types of radiation therapy. The results so far show that women who received breast conserving surgery, followed by a single dose of intraoperative electron-beam radiation therapy (IOERT) at the time of surgery, had an equal chance of survival as women who underwent the surgery, followed by six weeks of post-operative radiation therapy.

source: IntraOp Medical