10 year Radiation Study - Larger Fractions/Shorter Ttmts

april485

Hi everyone!

Met with the RO today for the first time and have decided to enter a clinical trial for Partial Breast Irradiation, 2 x a day for 5 days. I met all the criteria, the study is in year 9 and showing excellent results for early stage BC with no nodal involvement and margins >2mm all of which is ME! I will not be having bracytherapy but rather a newer arm of the study called " Four Dimensional Conformal Image Guided APBI. It is only for stage 0 and 1 BC and for women >50 years old.

I am thrilled. The se's are similar to whole breast radiation - sunburn like skin issues, exhaustion etc. The difference is that my heart won't be in the field nor will my lungs which is very good news for me. I signed the paperwork today and will have my CT scan in a few days to map it out and begin within 10 days to 2 weeks.

It is very concentrated in the area of the lumpectomy. I will have a CT scan all 5 days to measure where it needs to go. They will measure exactly where the area is, even when I breathe (which is why they do this CT scan "lite" daily) It is not a full CT scan but a scaled down version of one with a lot less radiation.

They will be implanting "gold seeds" inside the cavity within a day or so. They have to coordinate this with the BS cause she will do that with a needle in her office. The use a local like they did for the needle biopsy (lidocaine) and then "seed" me with them.

This is different from the mammostie and bracyhterapy type. It is similar to what you all had but in a concentrated and extremely targeted area.

Five days! FIVE! I am so very happy. They had me sign papers that I know it is a trial and not "standard of care" yet, but my odds of recurrence from the 9 years they have been doing this trial (this is phase 3) is 'statiscally insignificant in terms of differnce from whole breast rads.

They hope that this will become the norm moving forward for early stage, node negative, small (under 3cm's) cancers for those who chose lumpectomy, so people don't have to go through all of those weeks of rads.

Cosmetically, they have had a few issues ( 2-4% more report shrinking breast etc) that are a little more significant that whole breast rads, but other than that, reports are excellent! I am happy I was offered this option!

Wish me luck !

Edit: Here is the link to this study. I am being treated at Yale and my RO is the prinicipal investigator

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01646346?term=four+dimensional+conformal+image+guided+accelerated+partial+breast+irradiation&rank=1