Breast Cancer

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Breast Cancer

For patients having a lumpectomy the standard procedure is to deliver a course of daily external radiotherapy some weeks after the operation. This is a precautionary measure, to deal with any remaining tumour tissue in the area around the operation site.

A new form of radiotherapy is becoming available at a few centres around the world, which is applied in a single dose.

Intrabeam® radiotherapy

Single dose intraoperative radiotherapy

With the Intrabeam® photon radiotherapy system some breast cancer patients who are having a lumpectomy can now have single day targeted intraoperative radiotherapy.

After removal of the lump, the immediately adjacent area is irradiated from inside the cavity, using a ball point X-ray applicator, while the patient is still in the operating theatre. This means that radiation is delivered at the earliest possible time and directly to the tumour bed.

The radiation falls away sharply from the point of delivery and only 1cm away from the applicator the intensity drops to just 25% of the original level. This spares the surrounding breast tissue from unnecessary irradiation.

The use of Intrabeam® intraoperative radiotherapy can reduce the subsequent external radiotherapy by 7-10 days or possibly even avoid it altogether, so the risk of radiation burn to the skin is greatly reduced too.

For links to further information and details of centres offering intraoperative radiotherapy, please visit the Breast Cancer section of our web site www.mhlclinics.com

The radiotherapy is typically delivered over a period of 4-5 weeks, which is inconvenient and disruptive both for the patient and for supporting relatives. Also some degree of radiation burn to the skin is common, and this can cause considerable distress.

This offers the least disruptive treatment method available to patients with early stage breast cancer.

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