In the case of a high upper outer quadrant early stage breast cancer without adverse histological factors, would you omit boosting the breast lumpectomy cavity if the treatment area would involve a significant portion of axilla due to risk of lymphedema?
Assume the patient had axillary lymph node dissection and taxane chemotherapy. How would you counsel the patient about risk of lymphedema?
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Community Practice
There is a great thread on when to boost from TheMedNet- so that's a good place to start - to figure out if they need a boost or not. It shouldn't be just histologic factors - age is also important. To paraphrase, what they said - if you'd consider skipping RT altogether, then those patients do...
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Academic Institution
Agree with @Simul Parikh. I do not consider the location of the cavity as a factor of boosting or not. The priority is to reduce local recurrence with radiation so the breast including the cavity should be well covered. In that case, I am not aware of hard evidence suggesting significantly increased...
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Radiation Oncologist at Brown University Somewhat germane to this topic is a very interesti...