 |
| Researchers Dr. Fritz Eilber, left, and Dr. Anusha Kalbasi, find shorter radiation for sarcoma is effective |
Led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, 52 adults diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma of the limbs or trunk, where such tumors most commonly occur, participated in the study. The tumors had not spread to other parts of the body. The treatment consisted of a condensed form of radiation for 5 days, followed by surgery. The researchers then followed the patients for an average of two-and-half years.
They found that less than 6% of the patients with at least two years of follow-up had a recurrence, which is similar to patients treated with conventional 5-weeks of radiation. The study was published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"The main reason we treat sarcoma patients with radiation before surgery is to prevent the tumor from recurring where it was removed," said Kalbasi, who is also a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center. "As an added benefit, in some cases it can cause the tumor to shrink. So far it appears that the five-day treatment is working just as well as the five-week treatment."
In addition to recurrence, the researchers compared wound healing. Sarcoma surgery often requires a large incision to remove the tumor and can by itself result in wound complications. Adding radiation before surgery can slow the healing process even more. The team wanted to make sure the condensed five-day treatment didn't make wound complications worse.
Not only did the researchers find that wound complications were virtually the same for the two therapies, but they also identified a new set of biomarkers that could indicate how likely someone will be to encounter significant wound complications.
Source: UCLA press release
No comments:
Post a Comment