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Lani · 08-12-2006, 02:23 PM

Perhaps you would be a candidate for accelerated partial breast irradation as they only irradiate the tumor cavity. It can be done with brachytherapy (where catheters temporarily implant seeds twice a day over five days) or at the time surgery (too late for you) or twice a day for five days by external beam. Stanford has a trial. USC does as well but you might get randomized to the standard whole breast irradiation arm, which it sounds like you shouldn't have. Stanford's trial is of the last two options and they might make an exception ("compassionate use" ) due to your unfortunate anatomic circumstances.

Also (and this is just hypothesizing) Stanford has an active cyberknife program particularly for brain tumors and mets but also for brain aneurysms and any tumors that need pin-point precision targeting. Maybe they would use cyberknife to direct the radiation only where they want it and avoid other areas.

Hope this brainstorming helped!

08-12-2006, 02:23 PM	#12
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,782	I thought about your problem further... Perhaps you would be a candidate for accelerated partial breast irradation as they only irradiate the tumor cavity. It can be done with brachytherapy (where catheters temporarily implant seeds twice a day over five days) or at the time surgery (too late for you) or twice a day for five days by external beam. Stanford has a trial. USC does as well but you might get randomized to the standard whole breast irradiation arm, which it sounds like you shouldn't have. Stanford's trial is of the last two options and they might make an exception ("compassionate use" ) due to your unfortunate anatomic circumstances. Also (and this is just hypothesizing) Stanford has an active cyberknife program particularly for brain tumors and mets but also for brain aneurysms and any tumors that need pin-point precision targeting. Maybe they would use cyberknife to direct the radiation only where they want it and avoid other areas. Hope this brainstorming helped!