Post-operative Radiotherapy Omission in Selected Patients With Early Breast Cancer Trial International VErsion (PROSPECTIVE)

Breast cancer is the most common serious malignancy in women and most patients are suitable for therapy involving surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy (RT). For most patients, there is a lack of evidence that breast conserving surgery without adjuvant RT is safe and therefore patients bear the costs, inconvenience and morbidity of RT. Prior attempts to identify large subsets of patients for whom RT can be safely omitted based on clinicopathological features of the index cancer have had limited success, and so RT is currently omitted only in some women over 65 or 70 with small low risk cancers. Identification of a much larger subset of patients in whom adjuvant RT could be safely omitted would be hugely significant, not only to the patients, but to the entire health system. The ANZ 1002 PROSPECT study was a two-arm phase II study that used breast MRI findings and pathological features to identify a group of patients with low risk early breast cancer in whom RT may be safely omitted. The findings at the primary strongly support the hypothesis and suggest that the combination of preoperative MRI and pathological features can identify a substantial group of early breast cancer patients in whom adjuvant RT can be safely omitted. A Health Economic analysis of PROSPECT found that the avoided costs of RT and its potential side effects is likely to substantially outweigh the extra cost of MRI scans and associated investigations. Parallel cross-sectional studies assessing Fear of Cancer Recurrence (FCR) and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in patients taking part in PROSPECT who either did or did not receive RT and a control group found a substantially lower FCR in PROSPECT patients who omitted RT as well as improved HRQoL. The majority of screened and eligible patients (427/443 and 193/201, respectively) for PROSPECT were recruited from two Australian sites. Before the PROSPECT approach can be widely adopted, the findings need to be replicated in a multicentre, international study. In addition, patient reported outcomes and health economic assessments need to be performed prospectively and longitudinally. PROSPECTIVE is the follow-up to PROSPECT which will address these issues, and also include translational research aspects to further study the natural history and outcomes of this group of lower risk early breast cancers.