Breast Cancer Articles

The first question is, what does my job have to do with my decision to have a mastectomy? The answer may be…quite a lot.

Breast cancer treatments in my grandma’s generation consisted of remove the breast and do radiation therapy. If it comes back, do chemotherapy. Well, as most women (and quite a few men nowadays) know, radiation therapy and chemotherapy both do a ton of damage to your good cells in your body, rather than just the bad.  That’s the bad news.

Nowadays, radiation therapy, while it still damages good cells, is becoming a much more focused technique. This reduces the amount of damage it does by focusing more exactly on the cancerous cells.  It has also been found that, due to this increased focus, a woman can have nearly an equal chance of survival with a lumpectomy and radiation, vs. having to have a full mastectomy, thereby allowing the breasts to be saved.

Women now have access to treatments that are less invasive than the old methods, and which allow faster recovery.  They can opt for a lumpectomy combined with radiation therapy and expect the same results as they would get from a total mastectomy.

So why are so many women who are being diagnosed with breast cancer (an estimated 212,920 cases expected in 2009 according to the American Cancer Society), still opting for a mastectomy and full breast removal?  About 64% of the estimated diagnosis are expected to be caught in the early localized stage, which makes them more treatable.  You might think it’s due to fear, but it’s been shown that it has more to do with whether they can afford to take time off work.

Radiation therapy typically consists of receiving daily treatments for six consecutive weeks in order to effectively reduce the risk of reoccurrence. This becomes a huge obstacle to many women. They have kids to raise, a home to run, and/or a job to attend to.  It can become emotionally draining to handle the radiation treatment effects in addition to the daily responsibilities of work and home. Some women also have an issue with getting to and from the treatment centers.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “Close to one-fifth of early stage breast cancer patients do not receive the recommended radiation treatment even after lumpectomy. In fact, the chance of a patient receiving radiation following surgery decreases 3 percent for every 5 mile increase in distance to a radiation treatment facility.”

So what’s the solution?

A new therapy called MammoSite Radiation Therapy System (RTS)* which allows early-stage breast cancer patients who are lumpectomy candidates to receive the necessary full six weeks of targeted radiation in only five days.

National Institutes of Health Cornwell states that “The procedure uses a balloon catheter to internally deliver radiation only to the area surrounding the original tumor, minimizing radiation exposure to the rest of the breast, skin, ribs, lungs and heart,” adds Cornwell. “The device targets radiation to the area where tumors are most likely to recur, while minimizing exposure to the remainder of the breast, chest and lungs.”

Dr. Cornwell is a member of the DeKalb Medical Society, Georgia Surgical Society and Atlanta Medical Association, and is on staff at DeKalb Medical Center. Cornwell has implanted two MammoSite catheters at Dekalb Surgical Associates, which recently began offering the procedure in early 2006. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and completed his surgical residency at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta in June, 1998. He is board certified in general surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons F.A.C.S.

The Nasdaq traded company (CYTC) responsible for the design, manufacture, and marketing of the MammoSite Radiation Therapy System is Cytyc Corporation, located in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Their first inital clinical trial, which included 48 patients over a four-year period, showed that none of the patients experienced a recurrence after treatment with MammoSite. They presented their data and findings at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology meeting in October 2005.

Five years later, there was a follow-up study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study found that partial breast irradiation (PBI) using a similar technique to MammoSite RTS produces comparable results to conventional whole breast radiation therapy in preventing breast cancer recurrence in appropriately selected women treated with breast conservation therapy (BCT).

It’s important that women know about and learn about the results of these types of studies!  John Kennedy, M.D., a breast surgeon at DeKalb Surgical Associates* says that “Breast cancer patients are confronting difficult choices regarding their care at a very stressful time. MammoSite represents the next generation of internal radiation therapy, providing doctors and patients with a site-specific treatment option that dramatically reduces the duration of treatment. Women have been extremely pleased with completing their radiation therapy in only five days. The treatments usually begin just one week after surgery.”

Between new therapies, reduced time commitments, and early detection, some doctors believe up to 100,000 women a year could benefit from MammoSite.

* MammoSite RTS is a radiation therapy device cleared by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2002.  To date, it’s been used to treat more than 16,000 women.

* DeKalb Surgical Associates is the first private practice in DeKalb County to offer patients with breast cancer the MammoSite Radiation Therapy System.

Reference:

MammoSite is available through the following centers in the Atlanta-area: Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, Northside Hospital, DeKalb Surgical Associates, Piedmont Hospital, Southern Regional Medical Center and Emory Crawford Long Hospital. For up-to-date information regarding MammoSite RTS, please visit www.mammosite.com or call 1-86-MAMMOSITE (1-866-266-6748).