Would you recommend definitive local treatment of locally recurrent breast cancer with a positive contralateral axillary lymph node and no signs of distant metastasis?
Or, as this is presumed metastatic disease, would you recommend systemic treatment and defer RT?
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Community Practice
Locally recurrent breast cancers are known to have aberrant nodal spread, including the contralateral axilla, because of previous axillary dissection and radiation. We treat these patients as locoregional disease with a combination of locoregional and systemic treatment.
You do take previous treatm...
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Community Practice
Obviously, similarities in histology to the original offer clues to what's going on here. In the absence of glaring metastatic disease, I would give the patient the benefit of the doubt. I'd manage the recurrent side based on previous treatment (e.g.: mastectomy for in-breast recurrence,...