Adding radiation therapy to chemotherapy improves survival in patients with high-risk breast cancer

For patients with high-risk breast cancer treated with radical mastectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy, the addition of radiation therapy leads to better survival outcomes with few long-term toxic effects, according to a 20-year follow-up of a randomized trial, which appears in the January 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The British Columbia randomized radiation therapy trial was designed to determine the effect on survival of the addition of locoregional radiation therapy (radiation to the lymph nodes and chest wall) to a course of chemotherapy after radical mastectomy in premenopausal women with lymph node–positive breast cancer. Between 1979 and 1986, 318 patients were randomly assigned to receive no radiation therapy or to receive radiation. A 15-year follow-up found that radiation therapy was associated with improved breast cancer survival but not with overall survival.

In this 20-year follow-up of the British Columbia trial, Joseph Ragaz, M.D., of McGill University Health Center in Montreal, and colleagues found that the chemotherapy and radiation regimen, compared with chemotherapy alone, was associated with improvement in all end points analyzed. This included a 32% reduction in breast cancer mortality and a 27% reduction in overall mortality compared with chemotherapy alone. In addition, long-term toxic effects, including cardiac deaths, were acceptable for both groups of patients. “Our results, and those from other groups, confirm that in situations where residual disease remains, adjuvant chemotherapy alone in high-risk breast cancer patients is suboptimal and that the addition of locoregional radiation therapy is important to achieve the highest cure rate,” the authors write.

In an editorial, Timothy Whelan, B.M., B.Ch., and Mark Levine, M.D., of the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, discuss the use of locoregional radiation therapy in breast cancer patients and note that fewer clinicians accept its use in moderate-risk patients. “Because uncertainties continue about the effectiveness of locoregional radiation therapy after mastectomy in moderate-risk patients, we strongly urge that a randomized controlled trial be mounted to resolve these uncertainties,” they write.

Media Contact

Sarah L. Zielinski EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.oupjournals.org

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors