Treating breast cancer
[projekktor id=’20117′]
A decade-long study based out of Hamilton has demonstrated that applying radiation to the lymphnodes of certain breast cancer patients can reduce their risk of cancer recurrence.
Doctors followed hundreds of patients with breast cancer that had already spread to their lymphnodes. Instead of using radiation on just the breast, they applied it to the lymphnodes as well.
Mase Raposo was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. She says she was initially frightened by her diagnosis, “When the pathology said that it had spread into the lymphnodes that became very very scary for me. because like I said, if you have it in your lymphnodes it can travel through your body.”
After enrolling in the study, she received both breast and lymphnode radiation along with her standard treatment. She was one of 1800 patients to take part in Canada, Australia and the U.S. 150 of those patients were treated at Juravinski Cancer Centre.
Compared to the control group, lymphnode irradiation reduced the chance of cancer recurrence by five percent. The lead investigator for the study, Dr. Tim Whelan, is both an oncologist at Juravinski and a professor at McMaster University. He says the lymphnode treatment reduced the rate of breast cancer recurrence from 23 per cent to 18 per cent. That may not seem like an impressive number, but Whelan says the results are important because it is almost impossible to cure a recurrence of breast cancer once it has spread through the body.
That may not seem like a big number but lead investigator, Dr. Tim Whelan, says the results are important because it is almost impossible to cure a recurrence of breast cancer once it has spread throughout the body. “Once it comes back, especially in distant parts of the body such as the lung or the liver, we can treat it with chemotherapy but we can’t remove it because it’s in so many different areas. So at that point in time we can control it but we can’t cure it.”
For Raposo, who has been cancer free for over a decade, it’s reassuring to see others with the same result. “Every little bit is a step closer to not having recurrence, ever.”
The technique is already being incorporated into routine breast cancer treatment. It caused minor side effects including swelling in the arms but because technology allows radiation to be highly targeted, doctors don’t believe it affected internal organs any differently from radiation of the breast only.
