Posted on 12/18/2019 4:46:20 PM PST by Libloather
A groundbreaking study has found a breast cancer treatment that takes just 10 days could be just as effective as a more invasive version that lasts around six weeks.
A decade-long analysis of accelerated partial breast cancer radiation - which involves targeting only the affected area - on patients with early-stage cases appeared to have the same impact as one that targets the full breast and can take between four and seven weeks, the researchers said.
“APBI is a safe and less invasive treatment as compared to whole breast irradiation,” said the University of Florence’s Dr. Icro Meattini, who presented the findings Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, according to HealthDay.
**SNIP**
Those being treated with APBI were required to undergo five sessions of partial radiation therapy over the course of 10 days, providing a “faster move towards de-escalation strategy for breast cancer,” Meattini said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The University of Florence? Gimme a break!!!
If it works, it works.
They had the groundbreaking targeted therapies like herceptin tested in South America but no one accepted it until the tests were repeated here. That was a shame.
Having had a 25 year career at a major Harvard teaching hospital I know a bit about academic medicine. I stand by my statement.
Ok but whether you trust a study from Florence or not, are you aware patients in the United States already are given this alternative treatment approach? My sister in law for example this year.
You have two very different treatment regimens. Why would a study in Italy not properly reflect the outcomes for each treatment?
It would take a while to fully explain but I'll just let you know that more medical research money,public and private,flows into Boston than into any other city on earth.
I have some knowledge of what *real* medical research looks like.Walk through the hallways of research labs at the schools I've mentioned and you're tripping over Nobel Prize winners (and yes,the Nobel Prize in Medicine *does* mean something). The hallways of the University of Florence? Not so much.
Just think Mercedes vs Fiat.
Mercedes is German but I understand your point, thank you.
Yes but let me give you some real world experience from the patient perspective. Studies with herceptin had shown strong results on one of the worst breast cancers, but the studies were done in South America. I forget if there were European studies completed but I know South America had results. My wife had that cancer. An American who was most definitely not a nobel laureate but who had a lifetime of experience analyzing medical studies, told me herceptin was the only real shot at defeating my wife’s her2neu cancer.
American doctors could use herceptin, but not until other chemotherapies were ineffective. So my wife was given older treatments while I lobbied for herceptin. She got the herceptin when her very good oncologist saw the other drugs were no longer shrinking her large tumor.
Not too long after, MD Anderson published its herceptin study and it became the drug of choice.
My wife was saved. However, do I wish patients were able to have herceptin sooner even if the studies arrived in South American “Fiats” as opposed to waiting for delivery in an American “Mercedes”? Yeah.
For that reason I wouldn’t reject a study from Italy without examining it very carefully first and having a reason to reject it.
While we’re at it, a very distinguished American researcher at a top ivy league hospital was going to have my wife wait for surgery and then receive his experimental and unproven viral therapy. Luckily my wife’s excellent local surgeon insisted she seek a second opinion from the head of oncology at our regional hospital. She in turn had an excellent relationship with the head of oncology at the ivy league hospital. Thank God that resulted in a completely different course of treatment for my wife. In that particular case the ivy league renowned expert probably would have cost my wife her life.
Many of our idols have feet of clay.
Also I wouldn’t necessarily equate the medical establishment of Italy with that of Saudi Arabia.
Just my thoughts.
To me,it matters not where a particular medical breakthrough is first discovered (Boston or Ouagadougou) but I want Harvard's...or Yale's...or Columbia's...or Stanford's...seal of approval before I'll have anything to do with it.
Different strokes for different folks.
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