Radiotherapy is an integral part of the multidisciplinary management of breast cancer (BC). There have been multiple recent advances in the delivery of radiotherapy, reviewed with a critical discussion of the evidence from trials investigating adjuvant ultra-hypofractionation and partial breast irradiation for early-stage BC, and the locoregional management of lymph nodes in locally advanced BC. Multiple precision medicine-based approaches have been developed as prognostic and/or predictive for BC patients and identifying biomarkers of radioresistance could help identify patients that may benefit from dose-escalated radiotherapy or radiosensitizers. Radiotherapy after breast reconstruction is an area of current controversy in the field, and we evaluated the decision-making considerations in this situation. The oligometastatic state is an emerging field for many cancer sites based on recent trials investigating ablative radiotherapy for oligometastatic BC. This chapter is an overview of radiotherapy for BC, with a focus on recent advances in early-stage, locally advanced, and oligometastatic disease.
Keyphrases
- early stage
- locally advanced
- rectal cancer
- neoadjuvant chemotherapy
- radiation therapy
- squamous cell carcinoma
- end stage renal disease
- sentinel lymph node
- phase ii study
- radiation induced
- lymph node
- ejection fraction
- newly diagnosed
- chronic kidney disease
- peritoneal dialysis
- prognostic factors
- patient reported outcomes
- breast reconstruction
- oxidative stress
- open label
- dna damage
- lymph node metastasis
- dna repair
- quality improvement