The research was published in the May 23, 2020, issue of The Lancet. Read “Hypofractionated
breast radiotherapy for 1 week versus 3 weeks (FAST-Forward): 5-year
efficacy and late normal tissue effects results from a multicentre,
non-inferiority, randomised, phase 3 trial.”
Hypofractionated vs. traditional radiation therapy
In March 2018, the American Society for Radiation Oncology released
updated guidelines on whole-breast radiation therapy saying that most
people diagnosed with breast cancer should be treated with a
hypofractionated radiation schedule.
In many cases, people diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer
have radiation therapy after surgery to remove the cancer. Radiation
therapy lowers the risk of the cancer coming back (recurrence).
Whole-breast radiation therapy after breast cancer surgery is
usually given as one treatment per day, 5 days a week, for 5 to 7 weeks.
A Gray (Gy) is the way radiation oncologists measure the dose of
radiation therapy; if you’re on a 5-week treatment schedule, 50 Gy is
the usual amount given during the 5 weeks (2 Gy at each treatment). A
supplemental “boost” dose may be included at the end of the regimen that
targets the area where the cancer was.
Radiation treatment schedules were developed based on research
results. But a 5- to 7-week nearly daily commitment may be difficult for
some people, especially if they live far away from a treatment center.
So doctors developed and studied different radiation therapy schedules
that involve fewer treatments with higher doses of radiation at each
treatment, but about the same total radiation dose. These
hypofractionated radiation schedules put the same radiation dose into a
3- to 5-week schedule, instead of a 5- to 7-week schedule.
A hypofractionated whole-breast radiation schedule is appealing
to doctors and people getting radiation therapy for several reasons:
- Convenience: arranging daily trips to get treatment can be a problem
for some women, and fewer treatment days or a shorter period of time
may be easier to schedule.
- Compliance: if radiation is more convenient to schedule, women may
be more likely to get all of their recommended radiation therapy.
But a 3- to 5-week daily commitment to treatment can still be
difficult for some people to complete. So researchers have been studying
if even shorter radiation therapy schedules can be as effective as the
longer schedules.
https://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/accelerated-rads-has-same-effect-as-traditional