More breast cancer news. Indulge me a little, please.
I saw David Ollila this afternoon in the hospital’s Corner Cafe. I was too into my burrito bowl and he was in scrubs, so I didn’t attempt a conversation.
But the last time I sat down with the breast cancer surgeon he told me about some very exciting data.
Before he removes tumors he applies radiation — intraoperative radiation therapy. Nobody else in the US does it this way according to him. I’ve searched Google and the literature and haven’t found anyone doing this. Stanford applies radiation, but only after they’ve removed the tumor.
Ollila has been doing this “radiation in situ” as a clinical trial for several years; 70 % of women who get this procedure did not require mastectomy (the goal of the trial was to study cosmetic outcomes), and they did not require follow-up radiation, which can by twice a week for five to six weeks.
His selection criteria are women 48 or older with infiltrating ductal carcinoma and tumors smaller than 3 cm. Here’s the abstract of a paper by Ollila and others at UNC.
Introducing radiation while the tumor is still in place eliminates several shortcomings of traditional methods: doctors don’t have to guess where the tumor was, it’s well defined because it’s in place; they don’t have to pull tissue together to replicate the tumor bed; removing the tumor creates a small cavity where air settles and can lead to improper dosage.
Ollila presented the data at the International Society of Intraoperative Radiation Therapy in June.
