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Radiotherapy

Stop recurring breast cancer nightmares

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 8, page 690 (2011)Cite this article

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Over the years, the investigators conducting trials in patients with early stage breast cancer have been sharing their data, aiming to ensure that incremental changes in survival are not missed. A recent study by this group of researchers (the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group) has taken advantage of this rich seam of data to show that treating patients with early stage breast cancer with radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery significantly decreases recurrence and breast cancer mortality.

In their most-recent endeavor, the trialists were led by Sarah Darby from Oxford University. The study was designed as follows: “we sought data on every woman randomized in a trial in which women who had undergone breast conserving surgery were randomly allocated to receive radiotherapy or to receive no radiotherapy ... [This approach] avoids publication bias, as more extreme results are more likely to be published, and published sooner, than less extreme ones,” explains Darby. Using these criteria, the trialists obtained data on 10,801 women. By obtaining information on each individual woman, rather than grouping the data by trial, the trialists were able to assess each patient in the same way, to reduce factors that may confound the data.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group. Effect of radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery on 10-year recurrence and 15-year breast cancer death: meta-analysis of individual patient data for 10 801 women in 17 randomised trials. Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61629-2

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  1. Rebecca Kirk
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Kirk, R. Stop recurring breast cancer nightmares. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 8, 690 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.169

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.169

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