How Can Radiotherapy Be Used To Treat Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer affecting women and, like so many other cancers, the prospects for the patient depend heavily on early diagnosis and treatment.

Radiotherapy treatment can play a major role, but for certain risk groups it may not be needed following a mastectomy. This article explains what has changed and what has not.

Breast cancer most commonly affects women over the age of 50, but it can affect patients below this age. Men can develop breast cancer too, although this is very rare.

The first signs are usually the discovery of an unusual lump in a breast. Screening and other tests can help to confirm if the lump is benign or cancerous.

How Is Breast Cancer Treated?

Once a diagnosis takes place, there are several treatment options. These are:

• Mastectomy (surgical removal of the whole breast)
• Breast conserving surgery (when the cancerous tissue is removed along with surrounding breast tissue, but most of the breast remains in place)
• Chemotherapy
• Hormonal therapy
• Radiotherapy

These are often used in combination. For example, adjuvant chemotherapy and hormonal therapy may be used before surgery.

In stages 1-3 of cancer, Radiotherapy can be used after surgery, both after breast-conserving surgery and a mastectomy.

However, you may rightly query whether radiotherapy will be used after a mastectomy, as recent research has indicated that this may no longer be necessary. This was the finding of an international study carried out by the University of Edinburgh in the UK and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

What Did The Edinburgh Study Reveal About Post-Mastectomy Radiotherapy?

Normally, radiotherapy is used after various kinds of cancer surgery to target any remaining cancer cells that remain following surgery. This can apply to various cancers found in different parts of the body.

However, the Edinburgh study found that when surgery is used in conjunction with anti-cancer drugs, radiotherapy can safely be skipped with no adverse consequences for patients.

A study of patients from 17 countries revealed that the ten-year survival rates were not significantly different between those who had undergone post-operative radiotherapy and those who had not.

Specifically, there was no difference between the two groups in either the recurrence of the disease or metastasis (where secondary cancer takes place as it spreads from the original site to other parts of the body).

When Might Radiotherapy Still Be Used For Breast Cancer?

However, while this study indicates that radiotherapy may not be useful in this particular instance, when a full mastectomy has been carried out early after diagnosis, there are other instances when radiotherapy may still be an important and effective treatment.

Firstly, the study only applied to the situation for patients who had undergone a mastectomy, so it does not provide any basis to change established practice for patients who have had breast-conserving surgery.

Secondly, radiotherapy can be particularly important in treating secondary cancer that has arisen from breast cancer.

Two key factors can influence the likelihood of this happening: the first being later diagnosis, which gives the cancer a greater chance to spread before treatment, while the second depends on variations in oestrogen receptor status, which makes some patients more likely to experience metastasis than others.

Radiotherapy is not the only treatment you may have for secondary cancer, with others including chemotherapy and hormonal treatments, but it is commonly used.

This will be delivered as external beam therapy and locations where this is often used include the bones or the brain, these being two of the most common sites for secondary breast cancer to manifest.

What Are the Benefits Of Personalised Radiotherapy For Secondary Breast Cancer?

Benefits arising from such treatment include the relief of symptoms and the slowing down of cancer progression. Although secondary breast cancer is usually not curable, radiotherapy and systemic treatments can often control the disease and help people live well for longer.

If you come to our private radiotherapy centre, our work will involve devising the right treatment programme based on your circumstances. That may include post-op radiotherapy if you have had breast-conserving surgery for primary cancer, or radiotherapy for secondary cancer.

Each treatment programme is geared to the needs of the individual. This is partly because of variations in your medical situation, such as where any secondary cancer has spread to, your age, your overall medical health, as well as what has (or has not) worked well in any previous treatment you have had.

Beyond this, our aim is always to ensure every patient is treated as the individual they are, tailoring each and every aspect of care to their personal circumstances in order to provide the best possible patient outcomes.

Learn more about our advanced radiotherapy treatments for breast cancer and secondary cancers on the Amethyst Group website