Breast Cancer Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI)
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Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation for Breast Cancer
If you undergo a breast cancer lumpectomy, your breast cancer team at CTCA may recommend Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI). Your radiation oncologist may administer APBI treatments via brachytherapy or through external radiation beam techniques, such as TomoTherapy®.
With APBI, breast radiation therapy treatments are focused specifically on the part of the breast where the tumor was removed. This allows the radiation to be contained to the tumor cavity as much as possible. Because the radiation is so targeted, it affects less of the healthy tissue and organs close to the breasts, including the lungs, heart, ribs, muscles and skin.
Furthermore, this breast cancer treatment can be given in a more condensed schedule than some other radiation therapies for breast cancer. APBI allows breast cancer to be treated with radiation therapy in five days instead of six to seven weeks.
Requirements for this type of breast raditaion therapy treatment typically include a small tumor, clear surgical margins after a lumpectomy and preferably no lymph nodes containing cancer. Thus, APBI may be a suitable treatment option for women with early stage breast cancer.
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