A Breakthrough for Breast Cancer Treatment?

New developments on synchronous chemoradiation could come to U.S.

In September 2011, news broke from the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress in Stockholm that when using radiation treatment and chemotherapy simultaneously, known as synchronous chemoradiation, breast cancer patients are 35 percent less likely to suffer a relapse. In the U.S., chemo-radiotherapy for breast cancer is currently used infrequently and on a case-by-case basis; the exception for a breast cancer patient occurs when they’re at very high risk for reoccurrence.

So is this treatment going to be mainstreamed? Not necessarily, according to William Small Jr., MD, a professor of Radiology at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, who assessed the study. “It’s an interesting story. The type of chemotherapy, CMF, that was used in the study isn’t common in the U.S., mostly Europe,” Dr. Small notes. “It’s not harmful, the side effects are reasonable and local control of the disease was better. But I still don’t know many people who would decide to do it this way at this time.”

Though the study states the simultaneous treatment lowered the rate of reoccurrence, Dr. Small believes it could potentially increase the risk of relapse. “It might even be more harmful altogether from a toxicity standpoint, because we don’t use as much chemo when we administer it concurrently with the radiation,” Dr. Small explains. “But when we use less chemo, there’s the risk that the cancer may return because we weren’t able to use enough chemo.” Still, he believes it’s a treatment worth exploring. “It’s a reasonable trial to consider doing in the U.S., with the chemo we give here.”

Tagged as: breast cancer