Herceptin Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Herceptin, including details on side-effects, breast cancer, treatment, therapy.

Systemic adjuvant therapies and radiotherapy to the conserved breast: Strategies revisited.

Bartelink H

Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Ziekenhuis, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The rapid increase in the use of both radiotherapy and systemic therapy for patients with early breast cancer requires reconsideration of the strategies that have been used in the past for combining both treatments. In these considerations the impact of both radiotherapy as well as systemic therapy on local control and survival of breast cancer have to be considered. An important point for discussion has often been the sequencing of radiotherapy and systemic treatment. Nowadays the possibilities of trastuzumab for her-2 neu positive breast cancer leads to the question whether or not this can be combined with radiotherapy. Finally new possibilities of sophisticated radiotherapy approaches allow further minimizing the late toxicity of radiotherapy.

Published 6 November 2007 in Breast, 16: 84-8.
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