Partial breast irradiation for locally recurrent breast cancer within a second breast conserving treatment: alternative to mastectomy? Results from a prospective trial.

Purpose: To assess the outcome of multi-catheter pulse dose rate (PDR) brachytherapy of re-irradiation for local ipsilateral breast tumour recurrence (IBTR) in regard to local control, survival, morbidity and quality of life (QoL).

Patients And Methods: Between 1999 and 2006, 39 patients were included with histologically confirmed IBTR, Karnofsky index ≥80% and refusal of mastectomy. Exclusion criteria were multicentric invasive growth pattern, unclear surgical margins, distant metastasis and a postoperative breast not suitable for interstitial brachytherapy.

[Decreased number of R1-resections in radical retropubic prostatectomy. Use of a newly developed fast sectioning technique].

Therapeutic success and prognosis in RRP is determined by negative surgical margins. In order to minimize the proportion of positive surgical margins in the final histological evaluation, valid intraoperative control by means of frozen margin analysis is indispensable. We have developed and evaluated a new frozen margin procedure based on the Stanford method with transverse and sagittal cut directions.