2-weeks of Adjuvant Radiotherapy in Patients With Breast Cancer

Overview

The investigators at PGIMER have been practicing hypofractionation radiotherapy with a dose of 35Gy/15#/3wks to the chest wall in post mastectomy and 40Gy/16#/3wks in breast conservation in breast cancer patients for the last 4 decades. It is also a routine practice in UK and few centers in Canada. Hypofractionation reduces treatment time to half while maintaining cosmesis and gives control rates equal to conventional fractionation. As breast cancer is a leading cancer in females and radiation therapy is an important part of its local management, hypofractionation help the radiation centers worldwide to meet the growing need for radiation in breast cancer, particularly in developing countries where resources are limited. It also reduces the financial burden on the patient and family. In this study the investigators want to reduce the treatment duration from 3 weeks to 2 weeks. The study will include 20 patients with breast cancer post mastectomy or after breast conservative surgery to be treated with a radiotherapy dose of 34Gy in 10 fractions over 2 weeks. Patients will be assessed for acute radiation toxicity weekly during treatment and after one month of completion of treatment.

Patients to be included in this study will be pre-operatively staged according to American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 7th edition, International Union against cancer ( which uses TNM staging ) as stage I , stage II of breast carcinoma. Twenty patients of histologically proven post lumpectomy/mastectomy cases of carcinoma breast suitable for radiotherapy will be enrolled in this study. Patients would be evaluated at the Department of Radiotherapy PGIMER, Chandigarh by doing a thorough clinical examination followed by routine investigations which will include hemogram, liver function tests, kidney function tests, chest X-ray. Patients will be treated by standard rectangular tangential fields.The study will include 20 patients with breast cancer post mastectomy or after breast conservative surgery to be treated with a radiotherapy dose of 34Gy in 10 fractions over 2 weeks followed by a boost of 10Gy/5#/1wk in cases with intact breast. Acute toxicity will be assessed using a RTOG grading system. This will be carried out weekly during radiotherapy and for 4 weeks after treatment. If symptoms persist the patients will be assessed weekly until their reaction settles to RTOG grade 1 or less (Annexure I). Statistical analyses The principle end point of the study is an analysis of acute toxicities, cosmetic score analysis. Skin, subcutaneous toxicity and cosmetic assessment will be done before treatment and then in regular follow up of the study. Chi-square test will be used to compare radiation toxicity parameters. Descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviation will be obtained for all variables. p values of \<0.05 will be taken as significant. All tests would be performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) v.12.0.