Radiotherapy ‘little benefit in long term’ for breast cancer

RADIOTHERAPY does not improve long-term survival rates for breast cancer patients, a study suggests.

Researchers found that radiotherapy with either chemotherapy or the hormone drug tamoxifen after surgery reduces the risk of the disease returning in the subsequent 10 years.

But it makes little difference to that risk thereafter, nor does it improve overall survival after 30 years.

The study is being presented to the European Breast Cancer Conference in Spain. Around 55,000 women and 370 men are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in Britain. More than 63 per cent undergo some form of radiotherapy, according to Cancer Research UK.

Led by Ian Kunkler, honorary professor of clinical oncology at the University of Edinburgh, the team tracked 585 patients for 30 years. All were under the age of 70 at the start of the study and diagnosed with early breast cancer.

After surgery they were given chemotherapy or tamoxifen, depending on whether or not their cancer was driven by the hormone oestrogen. Half also had radiotherapy. A decade later, the risk of the cancer recurring in the same breast was reduced by over 60 per cent in the group who had radiotherapy.

Meanwhile, 30 years after treatment, 24 per cent of women who had radiotherapy were still alive compared with 27.5 per cent of those who did not.

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Researchers at King’s College Hospital in London showed that 13 per cent of vaccine patients with the most aggressive form of glioblastoma were still alive after five years, compared with 5.7 per cent in the control group.