Locoregional Recurrence Management in Breast Cancer

Locoregional recurrence in breast cancer denotes the reappearance of tumour within the ipsilateral breast, chest wall or regional lymphatic basins after initial curative-intent treatment. Management poses a complex therapeutic challenge owing to prior surgery, radiotherapy and systemic therapies. Current strategies emphasise a multidisciplinary approach that combines salvage surgery, targeted reirradiation techniques, systemic agents and, in selected centres, hyperthermia or intraoperative radiotherapy to optimise local control while minimising toxicity. Decision-making is guided by patient factors such as interval to recurrence, tumour biology and previous treatment history. Advances in imaging and molecular characterisation increasingly inform individualised treatment pathways, aiming to reduce subsequent metastatic risk and improve long-term survival. Globally, there is growing recognition that effective locoregional control not only improves quality of life but also influences systemic disease progression.

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Locoregional Recurrence Management in Breast Cancer publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in locoregional recurrence management in breast cancer across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Locoregional recurrence: Reappearance of breast cancer in the same breast, chest wall or regional lymph nodes after initial definitive treatment.

Re-irradiation: Delivery of a second course of radiotherapy to an area that has previously received radiation, requiring meticulous dose planning to limit normal-tissue damage.

Breast-conserving surgery (BCS): Surgical removal of a breast tumour with a margin of healthy tissue, preserving the remainder of the breast.

Intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT): Administration of a single high dose of radiation directly to the tumour bed during surgery, sparing adjacent normal structures.

Molecular subtype: Classification of breast cancer based on hormone-receptor and HER2 expression, informing prognosis and choice of systemic therapy.

Ipsilateral breast tumour recurrence (IBTR): Recurrence of cancer in the same breast previously treated with breast-conserving therapy.

References

1. Tolerance and Oncological Outcomes of In-Field Reirradiation for Locally Recurrent Breast Cancer: A Long-Term Single-Center Experience. Cancers (2023).
2. Different Re-Irradiation Techniques after Breast-Conserving Surgery for Recurrent or New Primary Breast Cancer. Current Oncology (2023).
3. Local and Regional Breast Cancer Recurrences: Salvage Therapy Options in the New Era of Molecular Subtypes. Frontiers in Oncology (2018).
4. Prognostic Impact of Time to Ipsilateral Breast Tumor Recurrence after Breast Conserving Surgery. PLOS ONE (2016).