Radiation Therapy in Treating Older Women Who Are Undergoing Surgery for Stage I or Stage II Breast Cancer

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• Determine reproducibility of localized and concentrated adjuvant radiotherapy, in terms of isodose curve and dose heterogeneity, in older women with stage I or II breast cancer.

Secondary

• Determine the impact of this regimen on Katz's Activity of Daily Living score and Lawton's Instrumental Activity of Daily Living score in these patients.
• Determine relapse-free survival of patients treated with this regimen.
• Determine overall and specific survival of patients treated with this regimen.
• Determine the cosmetic result, as assessed by the patient, surgeon, and radiologist, of this regimen in these patients.
• Determine the direct and indirect costs of this regimen in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter, open-label, nonrandomized study.

Patients undergo surgery. After surgery, patients undergo radiotherapy twice daily for 5 days.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 42 patients will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of invasive breast cancer

• Stage I or II disease

• Tumor size ≤ 30 mm

• Located in any breast quadrant
• No nodal involvement
• No inflammatory breast cancer
• No positive margins after surgical resection (performed on study)
• No microcalcifications
• Hormone receptor status

• Not specified

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• Over 70

Sex

• Female

Menopausal status

• Not specified

Performance status

• Karnofsky 70-100%

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• Not specified

Hepatic

• Not specified

Renal

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• Not specified

Chemotherapy

• Not specified

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• Not specified

Surgery

• Not specified