Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation Study

Studies have shown that giving radiation therapy to the breast after lumpectomy helps keep cancer from coming back in the breast. The purpose of this study is to see if partial breast irradiation (PBI) at SRMH Hahn Cancer Center is as good as partial breast irradiation performed in other centers in the United States in keeping cancer from coming back in the breast. Whole breast irradiation (WBI) is a standard treatment after a lumpectomy. WBI is radiation therapy given 5 days a week for 5 to 7 weeks to the whole breast. PBI is a new method of delivering radiation only to the area of the breast where the cancer was removed. PBI is given 2 times a day for 5 days. PBI may be given over a period of 5 to 10 days. This newer treatment is currently being compared with WBI in a randomized trial. Thus far, patients at low risk for cancer recurrence who have been treated with PBI have had excellent outcomes at 5 years post-treatment, but we will not know for sure if PBI is as good as WBI until the results of the randomized trial are available. However, PBI is commonly being offered outside of clinical trials in many community hospitals throughout the country. As radiation oncologists at Sentara RMH Hahn Cancer Center, we wanted to offer patients in our community the same opportunity to have this treatment, but also wanted to ensure close follow-up of all patients treated with this method, to be sure our results are similar to those of patients reported in our professional literature. There are two different methods of PBI that are being used at SRMH Hahn Cancer Center: Balloon brachytherapy and 3-D conformal external beam irradiation. This study will learn about the good and bad effects of radiation therapy. The study also will learn about the feelings women have about how their breast looks after surgery and radiation therapy.