MammoSite Brachytherapy
One of your breast cancer treatment options at the Stanford Cancer
Center is a new method that makes it more convenient to receive
radiation therapy after a lumpectomy. The procedure, called breast
brachytherapy, temporarily delivers a radioactive seed directly into
the breast where the tumor has been removed.
During the lumpectomy
surgery, or in a separate procedure, a MammoSite catheter with a
balloon at the tip is temporarily implanted into the breast zone where
the tumor was removed. After surgery your doctor sends a radioactive
seed directly to the tumor site by feeding it through the catheter.
Whereas tradition radiation treatment after a lumpectomy can take as
long as seven weeks, brachytherapy radiation treatment can be
completed in as little as five days.
In addition to being convenient, the rapid completion of radiation
therapy enabled by brachytherapy can also allow you to receive
chemotherapy sooner, if appropriate. A further benefit of
brachytherapy is that by precisely placing the radiation source inside
your body, rather than having to direct a beam of radiation from
outside the body, it allows doctors to deliver radiation to the tumor
site while reducing the radiation that reaches healthy tissues such as
your lungs, heart and skin.
Appropriate patient selection and expert surgical technique are both
critical to the success of MammoSite Brachytherapy because clean
margins must be present after the tumor is removed before it is
advisable to limit radiation treatment to just the tumor site.
Furthermore, the procedure may be more appropriate for some patients
than others. For example, because of its size, the catheter is most
easily implanted in women with large breasts, and specific tumor
characteristics also determine whether a woman is a good candidate for brachytherapy.
Although MammoSite brachytherapy is available at other hospitals
around the country, by receiving treatment in the setting of a
clinical trial approved by the Stanford Institutional Review Board
(IRB) you can be assured that if you are deemed an appropriate
candidate, every care has been taken to maximize your likelihood of success.