Treatment Options

Partial Breast Radiation: Brachytherapy

Partial breast radiation, in which only a portion of the breast is treated with radiation, can be done after a lumpectomy to help prevent a recurrence of your breast cancer.  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.

The advantages of partial breast radiation for women who qualify for the procedure are:

• 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.
• Women who work full-time or who have to travel some distance for treatment may prefer this therapy.
• The effectiveness of this treatment in preventing a breast cancer recurrence is about the same of external, whole breast radiation therapy.

How is it done?
Interstitial brachytherapy treatment delivers localized radiation directly to the part of the breast where the tumor was found. This is done by placing a number of catheters, or tubes, into the breast following lumpectomy surgery.

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.

Back to Radiation Therapy.

More information on Treatment Options:

• Surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Sentinel node biopsy
• Treating local recurrence
• Metastatic breast cancer
• Breast reconstruction

August 2007