"The research team used intensity-modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, a system that's more accurate at targeting the radiation, to see if treatment time could be shortened and the daily dose increased without any more ill effects than using the standard treatment."

""It's a bigger daily dose, but we feel it is more accurately and evenly distributed with IMRT," explained lead researcher Dr. Gary Freedman, a radiation oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia."

""We have great evidence that lumpectomy and radiation is equal, in terms of survival and cure rate, to mastectomy," at least for women with smaller tumors, he said."

"Even so, the length of treatment time can still present problems. "There are many women who balk at the six- or seven-week treatment length because of perceived inconvenience, or they have to travel a lot every day [to get to treatment]," Freedman said."

"The length of treatment time for radiation therapy, prescribed in combination with a lumpectomy when a woman has breast cancer, is "a very hot issue right now in radiation," Freedman said. Some studies are looking at one-week treatment with partial-breast radiation, he said, using both external beam radiation and implanted radioactive seeds."

"But this approach, Freedman said, is appropriate only for a very select group of women with the smallest of breast cancers."

"His team, which also included doctors from the University of Pennsylvania, treated 75 women, averaging 52 years of age, with a higher than typical dose of daily radiation, and then followed them to check for side effects."

""It's not a higher total dose," Freedman stressed. In traditional six- or seven-week treatments, a total of 60 grays (a unit for absorbed radiation) or Gys are given, he said. In their study, the total over the 4 weeks was 56 Gy."

"The technique, not yet widespread, used a computer-controlled X-ray accelerator to deliver doses of radiation that are very precise to the tumor or to specific areas within the tumor. This specificity minimizes radiation exposure to tissues around the tumor, Freedman said."

"Short-term results look good, he said. "So far, we have found that the immediate side effects of treatment were not increased over what we have seen with six or seven weeks of treatment," the researcher said. Radiation can cause skin toxicity and inflammation, for instance, but the four-week treatment results compared
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