FACULTY COMMENTS

DR WHITWORTH: If you reconsider the NSABP-B-06 trial, it’s clear that whole breast irradiation therapy resulted in zero benefit in any quadrant other than the primary tumor quadrant. So we have reason to believe the NSABP-B-39 trial will show equivalent benefit with PBI and whole breast irradiation, even in the patients at higher risk.

However, I would wait to use PBI therapy outside of the B-39 trial for patients who are at higher risk — those who have positive nodes, tumors larger than three centimeters or age younger than 45 to 50.

DR DIXON: PBI is not widely used in the United Kingdom. I did a pretty comprehensive systematic review of the whole literature on local recurrence, and surprisingly, most studies have shown that size and positive nodes are not as important as relative contraindications. However, young age is important, and the major factor, of course, is what we always talk about — the margins seem to matter. So I believe we have studies going on that will be interesting during the next few years.

 

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Editor's Note
State of the art 2008
Neil Love, MD

Slides and Faculty Comments

Sentinel Lymph Node Biospy (LSNB) Relative to Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy

Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy

Sentinel Node Biopsy Injection Site

Partial Breast Irradiation (PBI)

Genomic Assays: Prediction of Benefit from Chemotherapy

Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer

Assessment of Her2 Status

- Select Publications

A CME Audio Series and Activity

Faculty Disclosures

Editor's Office