Radiation therapy reduces breast cancer recurrence in the first decade alone

The radiotherapy after surgery to treat the early breast cancer reduces the risk of recurrence of the disease in the same breast in the 10 years following diagnosis, but hardly influences from that period onwards. of time.

The honorary professor of clinical oncology at the University of Edinburgh (UK), Ian Kunkler, presented this Friday, on the last day of the European Breast Cancer Congress in Barcelona, an investigation on one of the longest follow-ups of breast therapies, as it was studied at 585 patients aged 70 years or younger for 30 years.

After diagnosis of early breast cancer, patients were treated with. breast-conserving surgery followed by systemic therapy, such as chemotherapy or the drug tamoxifen, depending on whether or not their cancer was estrogen-induced. Part of the sample received radiotherapy after surgery and the other part did not.

Ten years after radiotherapy, disease recurrence (recurrence of cancer at or very near the same site) was significantly reduced by more than 60% in women Who had received radiotherapy compared to those who had not. However, after the first decade, the annual risk of recurrence was very similar in both groups.

The same was true for the overall survival: 30 years after their treatment, 24% of women who received radiotherapy were still alive compared to 27.5% of those who did not.

“These data defy the idea that radiation therapy improves long-term survival by preventing recurrence of cancer in the same breast,” Kunkler noted.