AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Improvements in locoregional treatment of breast cancer

by M. Donker




Institution: Universiteit van Amsterdam
Department:
Year: 2014
Record ID: 1259907
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.431801


Abstract

Breast cancer represents the most common female malignancy in the developed world, affecting approximately one out of eight women during her lifetime. Nowadays local control is excellent as a result of several improvements in diagnosis and treatment over the past few decades. This means that many patients will live with the side effects of the - often aggressive - cancer treatments. Side effects of locoregional treatment of breast cancer can be acute or late-onset, they can last a lifetime, and they often have a significant effect on a woman’s quality of life. The high survival rates, the overall reductions in local recurrence rate and the consequences of side effects of cancer treatment on quality of life raise the issue of overtreatment. In other words, can we sustain optimal loco-regional control with more conservative treatment approaches leading to fewer side effects, while maintaining these excellent locoregional control rates? Research is required to carefully select those patients for whom more conservative surgery is possible. This thesis describes several aspects of locoregional treatment of breast cancer patients, focusing on a more conservative surgical and radiation treatment of the breast and the axilla.