Postmastectomy radiation and partial breast irradiation

Between 1997 and 1999, three modern postmastectomy radiation therapy (PMXRT) trials were published. These trials showed a significant benefit with respect to local control and survival in women who received adjuvant radiation after mastectomy. Despite two decades of follow-up, reanalyses, meta-analyses and vigorous and often acrimonious debate, questions about the benefit of PMXRT in women with one to three positive lymph nodes (LNs) remain unanswered for many. This persistent debate has limited the use of PMXRT. A treatment concept certain to be as vigorously debated as that of PMXRT is that of partial breast irradiation (PBI). However, unlike PMXRT, the acceptance of PBI, by community physicians, has been nothing short of meteoric and represents the first major shift in the local therapy paradigm in more than 10 years. Herein, information will be presented that will suggest we are nearing the end of one debate-PMXRT in patients with one to three positive LNs-and beginning another-appropriateness of PBI.