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Are Patients Traveling for Intraoperative Radiation Therapy?
Kelsey E Larson1,2, Stephanie A Valente1, Chirag Shah3
1Division of Breast Services, Department of Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Purpose:
One benefit of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) is that it usually requires a single treatment, thus potentially eliminating distance as a barrier to receipt of whole breast irradiation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the distance traveled by IORT patients at our institution.
Methods:
Our institutional prospective registry was used to identify IORT patients from 10/2011 to 2/2017. Patient's home zip code was compared to institution zip code to determine travel distance. Characteristics of local (<50 miles), regional (50-100 miles), and faraway (>100 miles) patients were compared.
Results:
150 were patients included with a median travel distance of 27 miles and mean travel distance of 121 miles. Most were local (68.7%), with the second largest group living faraway (20.0%). Subset analysis of local patients demonstrated 20.4% traveled <10 miles, 34.0% traveled 10-20 miles, and 45.6% traveled 20-50 miles. Six patients traveled >1000 miles. The local, regional, and faraway patients did not differ with respect to age, race, tumor characteristics, or whole breast irradiation.
Conclusions:
Breast cancer patients are traveling for IORT, with 63% traveling >20 miles for care. IORT is an excellent strategy to promote breast conservation in selected patients, particularly those who live remote from a radiation facility.
