Tag Archives: adoption

Increased use of hypofractionated whole-breast irradiation for patients with early-stage breast cancer — ScienceDaily

An analysis of randomized trials demonstrated that patients with early-stage breast cancer who are treated with breast-conserving surgery and adjuvant whole-breast irradiation have improved survival and a lower risk of tumor recurrence compared to patients who are not treated with radiation therapy. Patients are commonly treated with CF-WBI; however, several recent randomized trials[2-5] have confirmed that patients treated with HF-WBI have similar disease-free and overall survival rates as those treated with CF-WBI. CF-WBI delivers a total dose of 45-50 Gy in 25-28 daily fractions of 1.8-2.0 Gy over five to six weeks, while HF-WBI uses a shorter treatment course and a lower total dose and number of fractions, delivering a total dose of 39-42.5 Gy in 13-16 daily fractions of 2.5-3.2 Gy over three to five weeks. This study, “Adoption of Hypofractionated Whole-Breast Irradiation for Early-Stage Breast Cancer: A National Cancer Data Base Analysis,” is a retrospective review of 113,267 early-stage breast cancer patients in the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) from 2004 to 2011 who were treated with radiation therapy and were eligible to receive HF-WBI, and examines the use of HF-WBI compared to CF-WBI and the factors, including facility type and patient’s distance from the radiation treatment center, that influenced which type of WBI the patient received. …

U.S. has seen widespread adoption of robot-assisted cancer surgery to remove the prostate — ScienceDaily

In 2001, surgeons began using robotic technologies in operations to remove the prostate. To examine trends in the use of such robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) procedures for prostate cancer patients, Steven Chang, MD, MS, of Harvard Medical School, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, led a team that analyzed 489,369 men who underwent non-RARP (i.e., open or laparoscopic radical prostatectomy) or RARP in the United States from 2003 to 2010. During the study period, RARP adoption (defined as performing more than 50 percent of annual radical prostatectomies with the robotic approach) increased from 0.7 percent to 42 percent of surgeons performing radical prostatectomies. Surgeons who performed at least 25 radical prostatectomies each year were more likely to adopt RARP…