Recent Developments in Radiation Oncology: An Overview of Individualised Treatment Strategies in Breast Cancer

Pazos, Montserrat; Schönecker, Stephan; Reitz, Daniel; Rogowski, Paul; Niyazi, Maximilian; Alongi, Filippo; Matuschek, Christiane; Braun, Michael; Harbeck, Nadia; Belka, Claus and Corradini, Stefanie (2018): Recent Developments in Radiation Oncology: An Overview of Individualised Treatment Strategies in Breast Cancer. In: Breast Care, Vol. 13, No. 4: pp. 285-291

Abstract

Radiation therapy (RT) for breast cancer has dramatically changed over the past years, leading to individualized risk-adapted treatment strategies. Historically, the choice of RT regimen was limited to conventional fractionation protocols using standard tangential fields. Nowadays, technological and technical improvements in modern RT have added a variety of other RT modalities, different fractionation schedules, and individualised treatment volumes to the portfolio of breast RT. This review aims to give a short overview on the main topics which have recently found their way into clinical practice: hypofractionated treatment protocols, accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) for low-risk patients, deep inspiration breath hold (DIBH) for maximal heart protection, extent of regional nodal irradiation for high-risk patients, and the implementation of new radiation techniques such as intensity modulated RT (IMRT) and volumetric modulated RT (VMAT).

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 1661-3791
• Language: English