Hello Ladies! Have any of you received partial breast irradiation? Did you have the choice of partial vs whole breast? and what did your Dr. recommend?
any what is your experience with partial breast irradiation? side effects, physical changes and how long was your treatment ?
thanks for your replies!
Never heard of partial breast irradiation. Wish I could help more
I don't think I have heard of radiating breasts--difficult to do without risking damage to heart, lungs unless using stereotactic rads, in which case mastectomy seems more likely choice. I would suggest getting a second opinion from a bc specialist onc. If you are in the US, the best cancer centers to do that would be any of the Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Info about those linked under "resources" at the right of this page. If radiating breasts is a new protocol being used, I'd like to hear more about it.
For my first diagnosis of breast cancer, the standard of care was a lumpectomy, radiation of the breast, followed by tamoxifen. It is very common to have a lumpectomy followed by radiation. Each patient’s cancer is very different and a mastectomy is not always the standard treatment, and is not always a necessity. Yes, there is more of a risk of damage to the heart when it is the left breast being irradiated as compared to the right breast, which is taken into account when deciding the course of treatment. Lumpectomy followed by radiation is still recommended as of this year. I have not heard of partial breast radiation. It sounds very interesting.
I had both. 15 sessions of whole breast and 5 sessions of targeted (partial) radiation. No lasting damage. Mine were done in a prone position which adds further protection, although not everyone can do it that way.
Please write all of your questions down and then ask your oncologist. I had breast cancer in 2004 and 2009, along with lung cancer in 2016. In all 3 cases I received radiation. The changes from 2004 to 2009 were enormous - they could target the cancer area much better to minimize damage to lungs and heart! However, because of so much radiation there was damage to my heart. For both breast cancers I received 36 days of radiation and for the lung cancer received 5 mega doses of radiation. There are various reasons for radiating the whole breast including the type of breast cancer, so your oncologist is the best person to ask. I suggested writing your questions down because if you are anything like me, you will forget things and not end up with all your concerns addressed. I also brought a dictation machine with me to record what the oncologist would say so that I could go over everything carefully when I was ready.
thank you for all your replies!
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