Progress of hypofractionated radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Breast-conserving surgery plus adjuvant whole-breast irradiationmay reduce the risk of local tumors and improve living con-ditions of patients. Conventional whole-breast radiotherapy confers good tumor control and esthetic effects with lower toxicity. How-ever, treatment periods of 5-7 weeks are inconvenient for patients and may lead to the wastage of medical resources. Thus, increasing-ly more individuals tend to choose a short-term radiotherapy mode, such as hypofractionated radiotherapy or partial breast irradia-tion. Many published reports suggest that short-term radiotherapy is safe and effective, similar to conventional fractionation, with comparable tumor control and fewer side effects than noted with conventional fractionation. Therefore, in contrast to conventional whole-breast radiotherapy, short-time radiotherapy shows remarkable advantages in shortening the total treatment duration, reduc-ing medical costs, saving medical resources, and improving the quality of life of patients.