Radiation therapy offered no survival benefit for women with early-stage breast cancer who received mastectomy, lymph node surgery and cancer drugs, according to an international study published Nov. 5 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The phase 3 randomized clinical trial followed 1,607 women — 808 of whom had received radiation treatment and 799 of whom had not — for a median of 9.6 years. Researchers — from the University of Edinburgh, Netherlands Cancer Institute and University College London, among other institutions — found survival rates were similar between patients who received radiation (81.4%) and those who did not (81.9%).
Participants were considered “intermediate risk,” indicating a diagnosis of stage 2 cancer and one to three affected lymph nodes, or aggressive tumors with no nodal involvement. Most had not undergone chemotherapy prior to surgery.
Radiation reduced the rate of local chest wall recurrence, but the difference was small: 1.1% in the radiation group versus 2.5% in the nonradiation group. The treatment did not affect time to recurrence or risk of metastasis.
