Premium
Palliative telecobalt—60 with concentrated dose in TNM classification T 4 of the breast
Author(s) -
Patricio M. B.,
Brites C. F.,
Guimaraes M. F.,
De Jesus E. B.,
Catita J. I.,
Vilhena M.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of surgical oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.201
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1096-9098
pISSN - 0022-4790
DOI - 10.1002/jso.2930330311
Subject(s) - medicine , radiation therapy , chemotherapy , breast carcinoma , palliative treatment , breast cancer , surgery , oncology , cancer
A method is presented of rapid, palliative radiotherapy for carcinoma of the breast, composed of two sessions of 6.5 or 8.5 Gy delivered at a 48‐hour interval. The radiobiological equivalence of this unconventional technique is presented. Our preliminary results in a series of 80 patients were published in 1978. The present report is based on the analysis of 112 patients with T 4 of the breast submitted to the “flash” dose, from March 1978 to December 1981. The method was used not only for relief of symptoms such as pain and hemorrhage, but also as part of intensive radiotherapy in all patients with good response and with no manifestation of distant dissemination so that they were able to resume treatment 2.5 or 3 weeks later, with conventional fractionation. Some of these patients became operable. About half of the cases had castration and/or hormone. therapy and/or chemotherapy. In the group of patients with T 4 M 0 , 59.8% were alive after more than 1 year, and of them, 43.7% had no evidence of disease. These encouraging results suggest that this method be advocated in T 4 of the breast because of its rapidity and good tolerance with no significant complications.