View Large
Radiation Therapy (RT) for breast cancer has seen a long journey precision and focused therapy. RT is an important part of breast cancer management which improve both local control of cancer as well as patients survival.
In earlier times it was a treatment delivered over span of 5-7 weeks with unavoidable high doses of radiation going to underlying heart and lung. Now in the era of precision/ focused radiation therapy technique like IGRT and IMRT, in majority patient’s radiation is delivered over 3-4 weeks with much more safety for heart and lung.
In recent years precision of radiation therapy has further improved with several techniques to protect heart and lung with the most important being DIBH (Deep Inspiratory Breath Hold). In DIBH radiation is delivered in 4D fashion with respiratory gating to keep heart away while delivering radiation therapy.
Further improvement is that in selected patients whole radiation therapy treatment can be delivered over just 4-5 days (rather than weeks) using a technique called APBI (Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation).
Breast Cancer APBI using intraoperative brachytherapy
Overall breast cancer radiation therapy has become a much shorter treatment with better safety and precision.
Dr Vineeta Goel is currently Director and Head Radiation Oncology at Cancer Institute, Shalimar Bagh. At Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh we routinely practice all these advanced techniques for treatment of cancers.
#BreastCancer #RadiationTherapy #APBI #BreastCancerRadiationTherapy
