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New treatment regime 'cuts cancer risks'
Source: Agencies |
September 26, 2011, Monday
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GIVING breast cancer patients radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the same time significantly cuts the risk their tumors will return and should be considered as a new treatment approach worldwide, cancer experts said yesterday.
Breast cancer kills 425,000 women a year globally, according to the British experts who conducted a major scientific study.
They said the double treatment - synchronous chemoradiation - has limited side-effects and does not harm quality of life.
Indrajit Fernando, a consultant clinical oncologist at the University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, told the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress in Stockholm: "The results have implications worldwide. Clinical practice needs to be reviewed."
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy usually follow breast cancer surgery, aiming to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast, chest wall or underarm area, and to reduce the risk of recurrence. The standard approach is to give chemotherapy first, followed by radiotherapy.
But the best timings for radio-therapy and chemotherapy have long been debated among cancer experts, so Fernando's team studied various schedules of radiotherapy with a type of chemotherapy called anthracycline-CMF in patients with early-stage breast cancer.
The study involved almost 2,300 women in the UK who had already undergone surgery to remove tumors.
The results showed that compared with the standard approach, giving both treatments at the same time "reduces the risk of local cancer recurrence by 35 percent in women with early breast cancer," Fernando said.
After an eight-year follow-up, the study found 41 patients in the synchronous treatment group had suffered recurrence, compared with 63 in the standard treatment group.
At five years, tumors had recurred in only 2.8 percent of those who got both treatments at the same time, compared with 5.1 percent among those who received the therapies separately.
Although there were no differences in overall survival rates between the two groups after five years, Fernando said he would expect to see survival rates rise in larger groups of patients over a longer time period.
Breast cancer kills 425,000 women a year globally, according to the British experts who conducted a major scientific study.
They said the double treatment - synchronous chemoradiation - has limited side-effects and does not harm quality of life.
Indrajit Fernando, a consultant clinical oncologist at the University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, told the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress in Stockholm: "The results have implications worldwide. Clinical practice needs to be reviewed."
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy usually follow breast cancer surgery, aiming to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast, chest wall or underarm area, and to reduce the risk of recurrence. The standard approach is to give chemotherapy first, followed by radiotherapy.
But the best timings for radio-therapy and chemotherapy have long been debated among cancer experts, so Fernando's team studied various schedules of radiotherapy with a type of chemotherapy called anthracycline-CMF in patients with early-stage breast cancer.
The study involved almost 2,300 women in the UK who had already undergone surgery to remove tumors.
The results showed that compared with the standard approach, giving both treatments at the same time "reduces the risk of local cancer recurrence by 35 percent in women with early breast cancer," Fernando said.
After an eight-year follow-up, the study found 41 patients in the synchronous treatment group had suffered recurrence, compared with 63 in the standard treatment group.
At five years, tumors had recurred in only 2.8 percent of those who got both treatments at the same time, compared with 5.1 percent among those who received the therapies separately.
Although there were no differences in overall survival rates between the two groups after five years, Fernando said he would expect to see survival rates rise in larger groups of patients over a longer time period.
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