Pros And Cons Of Breast Radiation Therapy

In 2013, it was estimated that 300,000 women would be diagnosed with breast cancer and about half of these women would receive radiation treatments. Breast radiation therapy is traditionally given when the patient is in the supine position, however, new research is suggesting a new position for patients. The above set of references describes the advantages and disadvantages of the new positioning, prone, and the traditional supine positioning when treating breast cancer in women with radiation therapy.
In the text, Barber-Derus and Glisch provide a good description of the standard set up for a breast cancer patient receiving radiation therapy. The positioning technique for treating breast cancer is having the patient lie in the traditional position, …show more content…
In a study done by Varga et al, they found that in the prone position 22% to 36% more patients had better cosmetic outcomes than patients in the supine position. This position was also found to reduce late toxicities by greatly reducing the amount of dose to critical organs, specifically the ipsilateral lung by 4.04 Gy to 5.43 Gy. When treating cancer in the left breast, the dose to the heart may be reduced in either position, but is dependent on each patient’s anatomy. Another study conducted shows that in the prone position, dose homogeneity can be improved up to 1.2% because of the narrowing of the breast as it falls away from the body allows for a more even dose to be distributed. The prone position also has shown the intrafractional motion falls within the 20mm tolerance. The author of the article suggest treating breast cancer in the prone position is ideal for many patients, however there are cases in which a patient must be treated in the supine position, therefore conducting further research among newer treatment techniques should be done in order reduce further dose to critical organs and late