My mother has left-sided breast cancer and her doctors have recommended radiation. How will her heart be protected during treatment?
Academic Title: Associate Professor
Board Certifications:
Radiation Oncology
There are multiple techniques that we use to protect the heart during treatment. These methods involve improved treatment planning, respiratory gating, or breathing coordination, and patient positioning.
The treatment planning techniques include forward planned 3-D conformal radiation therapy, or intensity modulated radiation therapy. These techniques improve cardiac sparing by using multiple treatment fields that exclude the heart, while still treating the breast tissue.
Respiratory gating or breathing coordination is the use of the patient's breath hold (holding the breath) to expand the chest cavity and move the heart away from the breast tissue. This moves the heart out of the radiation fields.
The patient positioning technique involves placing the patient prone, on her belly. This moves her breast tissue away from the heart.
With all of these techniques at our disposal, cardiac sparing techniques are the standard of care at Jefferson.