• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Risk Found in Breast-Cancer Brachytherapy

Posted on: Friday, 2 June 2006, 18:00 CDT

Breast-cancer patients who choose lumpectomy with balloon brachytherapy risk a complication called breast seroma, says a new study.

Seromas are pockets of clear fluid from the serum, or plasma, of the blood that can form in the body after surgery.

Although seromas usually resolve after a few weeks, a recent study done at the Tufts-New England Medical Center found that patients who developed the side effect required aspiration drainage and, in some cases, unnecessary biopsies to investigate what looked like disease recurrences.

Most physicians recommend radiation therapy after lumpectomy to destroy leftover malignant cells in the tumor bed.

In balloon brachytherapy, a small balloon is positioned in the empty tumor cavity and filled with radioactive material, which delivers a high but temporary dose of radiation and eliminates the need for postoperative radiation.

A research team at the Tufts-New England Medical Center studied 38 patients who had undergone such a procedure and followed them for an average of 17 months.

The research revealed that more than 75 percent of patients developed breast seromas and almost 70 percent of these lesions persisted beyond six months. Patients who had higher body weights developed seromas more frequently, the study showed, but patients who had postoperative infections had a lower incidence of the problem.

The researchers, who published their findings in the June issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, said they, (looked) forward to other studies in which the device is placed postoperatively to determine whether this lowers the rate of seroma formation.

Source: United Press International

More News in this Category