Higher complications after previous external beam radiation for extremity soft-tissue sarcoma in the surgical treatment of a local recurrence: a comparative retrospective study of one hundred and three patients.

Purpose: The use of adjuvant radiation in the treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma (STS) is equivocal in selected cases. Our objective was to compare the short-term outcomes in patients operated on for a local recurrence who had radiation for the primary tumour to those who were spared radiation.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of 103 patients treated for a local recurrence: 48 (47%) with previous radiation and 55 (53%) without.

Contribution of respiratory gating techniques for optimization of breast cancer radiotherapy.

A comparative, nonrandomized, multicenter, and prospective analysis were performed between April 2004 and June 2008 in 20 French centers in order to compare clinical aspects of respiratory-gated conformal radiotherapy (RGRT) during breast cancer irradiation versus conventional conformal radiotherapy. The final results based on 233 evaluable patients at 48 months confirm the feasibility and good reproducibility of the RGRT systems. The main results demonstrated a marked reduction of dosimetric parameters predictive of lungs and cardiac toxicities in the RGRT group; especially the dose delivered to the heart during irradiation of the left breast; mostly observed with deep inspiration breath-hold techniques.

Radiotherapy for stage II and stage III breast cancer patients with negative lymph nodes after preoperative chemotherapy and mastectomy.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) in Stage II-III breast cancer patients with negative lymph nodes (pN0) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).

Patients And Materials: Of 1,054 breast cancer patients treated with NAC at our institution between 1990 and 2004, 134 had pN0 status after NAC and mastectomy. The demographic data, tumor characteristics, metastatic sites, and treatments were prospectively recorded.

Is radiotherapy an option for early breast cancers with complete clinical response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy?

Purpose: To determine whether the exclusive use of radiotherapy (ERT) could be a treatment option after complete clinical response (cCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) for early breast cancer (EBC).

Methods And Materials: Between 1985 and 1999, 1,477 patients received NCT for EBC considered too large for primary conservative surgery. Of 165 patients with cCR, 65 patients were treated with breast surgery (with radiotherapy) and 100 patients were treated with ERT.

Management of inflammatory breast cancer after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Purpose: To assess the benefit of breast surgery for inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).

Methods And Materials: This retrospective series was based on 232 patients treated for IBC. All patients received primary chemotherapy followed by either exclusive radiotherapy (118 patients; 51%) or surgery with or without radiotherapy (114 patients; 49%).

Is regional lymph node irradiation necessary in stage II to III breast cancer patients with negative pathologic node status after neoadjuvant chemotherapy?

Purpose: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) generally induces significant changes in the pathologic extent of disease. This potential down-staging challenges the standard indications of adjuvant radiation therapy. We assessed the utility of lymph node irradiation (LNI) in breast cancer (BC) patients with pathologic N0 status (pN0) after NAC and breast-conserving surgery (BCS).