Crozer Health Now Offers Breast Cancer Patients a More Convenient Radiation Treatment Option with Fewer Side Effects
Many patients with early-stage breast cancer are now candidates for Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation, also called APBI. Crozer Health’s advanced APBI program is being offered at the health system’s Broomall and Brinton Lake Cancer Centers, and the procedures are performed by cancer specialists using state-of-the-art technology.
Benefits of APBI over other forms of radiation therapy include shorter treatment time, minimized exposure to radiation, less invasive procedures, and greater success in saving healthy breast tissue. Crozer Health breast cancer radiation specialists perform APBI after a lumpectomy to prevent cancer from returning to the breast.
APBI uses precise radiation beams to kill cancerous cells in a smaller area of the breast versus the whole breast or chest area. Crozer Health doctors can now deliver the radiation in a shorter (accelerated) course of treatment. While previous standard radiation requires 20-30 visits over 4-6 weeks and treats the entire breast, APBI requires only five treatments over two weeks. APBI targets only the surgical site where the cancer was removed, helping to minimize side effects while being an equally effective treatment option.
“Some breast cancer patients may elect to undergo mastectomy because of the inconvenience of daily treatment or potential side effects of radiation therapy. Now patients have the opportunity to keep their breast with fewer visits and fewer side effects,” said Chantal Reyna, M.D., Chief of Breast Surgery and Medical Director of the Breast Program for Crozer Health.
For more than five years, Crozer Health has been treating select breast cancer with Cyberknife™, a form of APBI, with great results. CyberKnife is an advanced technology that delivers a specialized form of radiation therapy called stereotactic radiosurgery, or stereotactic body radiation therapy. It is a painless, non-invasive, extremely accurate way to deliver radiation directly to the cancer, resulting in minimal to no side effects and no recovery time.
For more information or to find out if you’re a candidate for APBI, call:
Broomall Cancer Center: 484-446-3636
Brinton Lake Cancer Center: 610-579-3600