Internal Mammary Nodal Irradiation: The Jury is Still Out!

Tabassum Wadasadawala and Jyoti Bajpai

Department of Radiation Oncology, Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education, Navi Mumbai, India
Department of Medical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India

^*Correspondance to: Jyoti Bajpai 

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Abstract:

In the current era of “minimal treatment” and “personalized” multi-disciplinary management for breast cancer, the data from thousands of women participating in the Regional Nodal Irradiation (RNI) trials has raised several concerns and opened up debate surrounding internal mammary chain (IMC) irradiation. These issues include the relative contribution of irradiation of the IMC, the target volume and dose to be delivered, the lack of overall survival benefit with RNI, and whether to treat IMC when overall regional recurrences are rare especially in the current era of effective systemic therapy. We recommend that caution should be exercised while adopting this into clinical practice as the data is not mature enough to prove its safety especially with respect to cardiac morbidity as well as second malignancy.

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Cite the Article:

Wadasadawala T, Bajpai J. Internal Mammary Nodal Irradiation: The Jury is Still Out!. Clin Oncol. 2016; 1: 1119.