Shorter radiotherapy may treat breast cancer – 09/16/2024 – Balance and Health

Hopes for shorter radiotherapy treatment for women suffering from breast cancer are gaining ground among experts, according to a study presented at the world’s leading oncology congress.

Three weeks of radiation instead of five: this would be the duration of the treatment announced at the annual congress of Esmo, the European Society for Medical Oncology, held in Barcelona until Tuesday (17).

The phase 3 clinical trial (to see if a new treatment is better than a traditional one) evaluated 1,265 patients over five years and compared the effects of a standard five-week radiotherapy with a new “hypofractionated” regimen, reduced to three weeks.

All of the women suffered from breast cancer that affected the lymph nodes, which means that the tumor is no longer localized but has spread throughout the lymph nodes.

Some of the patients in the study received slightly stronger doses at each session, but a reduced schedule overall.

“From previous studies, it was known that the effectiveness of shorter radiotherapy was the same in the case of a localized tumor, but for women with affected lymph nodes, there was nothing until now to show that the number of sessions could be reduced,” Sofia Rivera, oncologist-radiotherapist, head of service at the French Gustave-Roussy Institute, who presented the study, explained to AFP.

To reduce the sessions to three weeks, the radiation dose was slightly increased with each intervention.

“When you treat the chest, but also the lymph nodes, you are treating much larger volumes, which include healthy tissues such as the lungs, heart or esophagus,” says Rivera. Therefore, with a stronger dose, there was a fear of an increase in treatment-related side effects. But the results dispelled this fear.

“We have an overall survival rate, recurrence-free and metastasis-free survival that is even better” with “hypofractionated” therapy, says the oncologist.

Given these data, it is very likely that shorter radiotherapy will also be proposed for women with breast cancer with affected lymph nodes, which represents 30% of the types of the disease.

“This will mean less arduous treatments; we are clearly moving towards a reduction in the therapeutic burden. It is an improvement in quality of life”, celebrates Rivera, adding that there will also be a reduction in waiting lists, with a greater rotation of the use of radiotherapy machines.