[Hypofractionated postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer]

Postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy for breast cancer is usually applied in twenty five fractions of 2 Gy on the whole breast followed by a boost dose on the initial tumour site. Facing a continuous rise of the workload in radiotherapy departments, investigators have tried to reduce the burden of such a treatment approach both for the patients and the departments as available resources are not unlimited. These hypo-fractionated treatment schedules have been tested and validated in randomized controlled trials. Based on this evidence a new treatment algorithm has been built up as it has been shown that those schedules do provide similar levels of local control with comparable or an even lower risk of toxicity.