Intra Operational Radiation Therapy

I did not use IORT but I did enter a clinical trial for Partial Breast Rads, 2x a day for 5 days (6 hours apart for each treatment each day) but it was traditional external beam. Each day they did a CT scan to make sure the beams were directed on the lesion only. The implanted gold seeds in my breast with a large needle (hurt a tad but it was over fast) and then pinpointed the gays (radiation measurement are called gays in case you did not know the term) in that area only. I was done in 5 days which was great but they pumped quite a bit of radiation in that 5 days (sort of like 10 boosts instead of normal rads) and I did get fatigued for about 2 months after but bounced back eventually. I had very little burning though (like a sunburn only) but now have some shrinkage to that breast (more than one would normally see with traditional rads protocol I suspect) and am seen twice a year for 5 years and each year they take a photo of the breast to see what kind of cosmetic outcomes people have.

I am glad I did this as my rads were 40 miles one way in drive time so 6 weeks would have been kind of tough. I worked during the rads by going to the office closest to Yale (10 mins away) but could only do that for a week, not for 6 so that is another reason I chose this trial. I had first dose at 7:30 am and second at 1:30 PM. In between, worked 8-1 and then went home for the day.

The trial had strict guidelines though. Had to be older than 50, DCIS or Stage 1 with no nodal involvement, max 3 weeks out of lumpectomy (no MX was allowed for this) surgery and margins had to be larger so had to have a re-excision due to one margin that was too close (less than 1mm) because all had to be over 10mm.

Hope this information was helpful. My rads were 2.5 years ago.

Hi Cinammon77,

I had a lumpectomy and intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) on 8-25-2015 and am SO grateful!

I was in and out of the hospital the same day and when I left the hospital, I was done! I am grateful that I learned about it and was able to have it done instead of the external radiation for 6 weeks.

I didn't need painkillers and there was no cosmetic effects such as redness and such. In fact, my profile picture on this site was taken just after my surgery -- these are my first post-anesthesia steps!

My breast surgeon, Dennis Holmes, MD is one of the pioneers of the procedure and you can google him to read more about IORT.

I highly recommend IORT to anyone who is qualified to have this done.