Giving radiation therapy and chemotherapy at the same time after a lumpectomy helps keep breast cancer from returning locally, according to a study published on Friday.

The results are reported in the Dec. 1 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics.

For early-stage breast cancer, the standard treatment is a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy to the entire breast. Doctors usually recommend chemotherapy in addition for women with invasive disease. When to give the chemotherapy -- whether after surgery, but before radiation or after surgery and radiation -- has been widely debated among researchers.

Cancer researchers at Yale New Haven Hospital and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, try to answer the question as to the proper sequencing of chemotherapy. They recorded data from more than 2,000 patients over the course of nearly 25 years.

Of those women, 535 patients were treated with the different sequencing of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Patients were then grouped by how they received the treatment, 276 women received chemotherapy before radiation therapy, 106 women received radiation therapy before chemotherapy, 109 women received concurrent chemotherapy and radiation and 44 women received the "sandwich" technique of alternating chemotherapy with radiation therapy and then repeating chemotherapy.

The outcome for the women was successful across the group, with 10-year overall survival at 78 percent.

Researchers note that in this retrospective analysis, by concurrently administering chemotherapy and radiation therapy, there appears to be a benefit to selected patients in terms of local control of the breast cancer. The challenge over the next few years is to identify those patients who would best benefit from this strategy.

Source: Xinhua