Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy destroys cancer cells left behind in the breast, chest wall, or armpit after surgery. Rarely, radiation is used to shrink a tumor before surgery.

Radiation therapy is generally recommended after a lumpectomy, to reduce the risk of a local recurrence within the remaining breast tissue. In some cases, radiation is recommended after a mastectomy if there is a high risk of tumor cells remaining behind after surgery.

Radiation therapy typically is given five days a week for a period of six to seven weeks, using a machine that looks much like a regular X-ray machine. The procedure is not painful, and each treatment lasts only minutes.

Women who plan to have breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) may be eligible for brachytherapy following their surgery. Discuss this therapy with your doctor if you are interested.

Partial Breast Radiation: Brachytherapy
Partial breast radiation means only a portion of the breast is treated with radiation. It can be done after a lumpectomy to help prevent a recurrence. This treatment is most commonly done with a technique called interstitial brachytherapy.

Until recently, the only option for women who had a lumpectomy was six or more weeks of daily radiation treatments to the whole breast as an adjuvant treatment.

Advantages of partial breast radiation:

• It is a localized treatment, which spares surrounding tissues (including the lungs and heart) from unnecessary radiation exposure.
• It requires only four or five days of twice-daily treatments, rather than the six weeks of daily treatments (Monday-Friday) that is standard for conventional radiation therapy.
• It may be an option for women who have already had radiation therapy, for Hodgkin's lymphoma, for example.
• The effectiveness of this treatment in preventing a breast cancer recurrence is about the same as external, whole breast radiation therapy.

How is it done?
Interstitial brachytherapy treatment delivers radiation directly to the part of the breast where the tumor was found. After lumpectomy surgery, several narrow catheters, or tubes, are placed into the breast. Radioactive seeds are inserted into the catheters twice a day for four or five days, and then the catheters are removed. The total dose of radiation is equivalent to what you would receive with conventional external beam radiation therapy.

Only women who have had or plan to have a lumpectomy to treat early stage breast cancer may qualify for this treatment. There are other eligibility requirements as well, which you should discuss with your doctor.

This therapy is done at University of Washington Medical Center. Cancer care services at UW Medical Center are part of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance services.

Side Effects of Radiation Therapy
Side effects of radiation therapy are similar in some ways to chemotherapy side effects. Although you may experience some of these effects, you may experience them all. Common side effects of radiation include fatigue, diarrhea.