Hope for breast cancer patients

BREAST cancer patients may one day have the option of having one blast of radiotherapy during surgery instead of a series of up to 25 sessions afterwards, researchers said. They believe the new intra-operative radiotherapy could be cheaper and easier for women and may improve the treatment of breast cancer for patients living in remote areas or in the developing world.

Dr. Emiel Rutgers, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, told the Third European Breast Cancer Conference that early tests of the new technique were promising but more research was needed.