Upstate Cancer Center offering same-day surgery, radiation-treatment option for early stage breast cancer

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Upstate Cancer Center is now offering a same-day surgery and radiation-treatment option for women with early stage breast cancer.

Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) administers a “targeted, concentrated” dose of radiation directly to the tumor cavity at the time of lumpectomy, as described in an Upstate news release. The therapy gives women the option to “complete both cancer surgery and radiation treatment at the same time.”

Upstate Cancer Center describes IORT as an “innovative alternative to traditional” external beam radiation therapy. Its benefits include “significantly shorter treatment times, fewer side effects, reduced costs, added convenience; and improved quality of life,” the center says.

Upstate Cancer Center is one of the few centers in the state offering this therapy, it contends.

Meeting the criteria for IORT decreases radiation visits from as many as 15 treatments over three weeks down to one, which occurs at the same time as surgery, the Upstate Cancer Center says.

“Normally after a lumpectomy you would wait four to six weeks for healing and then you would start three weeks of daily radiation,” Dr. Lisa Lai, breast surgeon at Upstate, said in the release. “Now it can all happen at the same time.”

IORT is a “tremendous tool” for Upstate doctors working with women who have breast cancer, the Cancer Center contends.

“It eliminates the need for multiple visits to radiation therapy centers, it eliminates some of the cost and it makes it less anxiety-provoking,” Dr. Mary Ellen Greco, Upstate breast surgeon, said. “One time, one visit, one treatment can make everything a lot more efficient.”

Studies of early-stage breast cancer treatment have shown that performing a lumpectomy by removing the cancerous tissue and a small rim of tissue surrounding it, plus radiation therapy, provides women the “same survival outcomes” as a total breast removal or mastectomy. In recent years, significant advancements have been made in the detection and treatment of breast cancer. IORT offers patients a “less-invasive, breast-conserving option with valuable benefits.”

“The patient is essentially recovering from the lumpectomy,” said Lai.

The procedure

Radiation oncologists and surgeons work together to administer breast IORT in five steps.

A surgeon first removes the cancer while preserving the remaining breast tissue. Then, “immediately” after the cancer is removed, the surgeon places a small inflatable balloon inside the surgical cavity.

The surgeon then places a miniaturized X-ray source in the applicator, which is “energized” to deliver radiation for a prescribed amount of time. The radiation is delivered while medical personnel remain in the room.

When the treatment is complete, the X-ray source is turned off. All devices are removed and the surgeon completes the operation.

The Upstate Cancer Center completed its first IORT treatments on July 23 with additional patients scheduled for August.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com