title: Novel and Highly Compressed Schedules for the Treatment of Breast Cancer.
abstract: Our thinking about radiotherapy (RT) for early-stage breast cancer has evolved considerably over the last several years. Increasingly patients and physicians together are making the decision to use altered fractionation rather than standard 6-7 weeks of conventional whole breast treatment plus lumpectomy bed boost. Adjuvant hypofractionated whole breast irradiation is now viewed as a preferred strategy for many eligible women, and can be completed in 3-4 weeks. Adjuvant accelerated partial breast irradiation is another alternative that is typically delivered in 8-10 fractions over 4-5 days. With improvements in delivery techniques, there has been renewed interest in shortening treatment times even further, with novel intraoperative approaches and ultrashort courses of external beam RT. This article provides a summary of the status and future directions in intraoperative and ultrashort course RT schedules used in the treatment of breast cancer. Outlined are the benefits as well as the drawbacks of these techniques for abbreviated breast RT.
authors.affiliation: Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ; Department of Radiation Oncology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ. Electronic address: atif.j.khan@rutgers.edu.
authors.forename: Atif J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ; Department of Radiation Oncology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ.
authors.forename: Stuti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahlawat
authors.affiliation: Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ; Department of Radiation Oncology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ.
authors.forename: Sharad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goyal
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015412:Mastectomy, Segmental; D000069473:Radiation Dose Hypofractionation; D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant