Study: New strategy on fighting breast cancer

Giving breast-cancer patients chemotherapy and radiation at the same time reduced the risk of tumors recurring by 35 percent, according to a British study that may change the way doctors treat patients.

The trial, which involved almost 2,300 women with early-stage breast cancer, was the largest so far to investigate the approach, in which radiation is administered between or during cycles of drug treatment, the researchers said yesterday at a cancer meeting in Stockholm.

Of the women who received the two treatments in this way, 41 saw their cancer return, compared with 63 of those who completed chemotherapy and then underwent radiation treatment, the researchers said.

The findings conflict with previous trials and may change the way the tumor-fighting techniques are used, said Indrajit Fernando, the lead researcher and an oncologist who teaches at the University of Birmingham in England.

Giving chemotherapy and radiation alternately or at the same time may allow women to return to work sooner, Fernando said.

"Patients liked the fact that when they finished their latest chemotherapy, they'd finished all their treatment," Fernando said in Stockholm. "They didn't have to wait another four weeks to start radiotherapy."

Women participating in the study had surgery to remove breast tumors. They then received either chemotherapy followed by radiation, or the experimental approach, known as synchronous chemoradiation.

After five years, 5.1 percent of the women who had sequential courses of treatment had breast cancer return, compared with 2.8 percent of those who received synchronous chemoradiation, the study found.