Washington, Sept 25 (ANI): Giving radiotherapy between or during chemotherapy cycles to women with early breast cancer could significantly reduce the risk of the cancer recurring in the breast or chest wall, a new study led by an Indian-origin researcher has suggested.
The treatment, known as synchronous chemoradiation, has minimal adverse side effects and no detrimental effect on the patients' quality of life.
"The results show that synchronous chemoradiation reduces the risk of local cancer recurrence by 35 percent in women with early breast cancer," said Dr Indrajit Fernando, a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK.
"After a follow-up of over eight years, only 41 patients in the synchronous chemoradiation group had suffered a recurrence compared with 63 patients in the sequential chemoradiation group," he added.
Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are usually given after breast cancer surgery to destroy any remaining cancer cells in the breast, chest wall or underarm area, in order to reduce the risk of a local cancer recurrence.
Sequential chemoradiation is the standard treatment schedule where chemotherapy is given first followed by radiotherapy.
The present study was done on 2,296 women who already had surgery to remove their breast tumors and all of them received chemoradiation after surgery, either sequential or synchronous.
Results showed that the five-year local recurrence rates were 2.8 percent and 5.1 percent in the synchronous and sequential chemoradiation groups, respectively.
This difference of 2.3 percent between treatment groups was statistically significant, Dr Fernando said.
Therefore, even a 2.3 percent reduction in local recurrence rates will have an impact worldwide when we consider that this is a very common cancer, he added.
The study was recently presented in Stockholm at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress. (ANI)
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