Cancer study could change Radiation Treatment

The study, one of three discussed at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, found that contrary to conventional wisdom, radiation therapy to the whole brain did not improve survival, and harmed memory, speech and thinking skills.
“This is the classic question: Which is worse, the disease or the treatment?” said one study leader, Dr Jan Buckner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Radiation helped control the cancer, Dr Buckner said, “but at the cost of cognitive decline”.
The two other studies discussed on Sunday also questioned longstanding ways in which patients are treated. One found that removing lymph nodes when oral cancers are first diagnosed, not routinely done now, dramatically improves survival. Another found the opposite was true for people with the skin cancer melanoma that had spread to a few lymph nodes.
The first study affects the most patients by far. An estimated 400,000 patients in the US alone each year have cancer that spreads to the brain, usually from the lungs, breast or other sites.
Dr Paul Brown of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in Houston led a study of 213 patients with one to three tumors in the brain to see whether the risks of whole brain radiation were worth its help in controlling cancer.
Half of the patients had the usual radio-surgery and the rest had that followed by whole brain radiation. Three months later, 92% of patients who got both treatments had cognitive decline versus 64% of those given just radio-surgery.
“The negative effects far outweigh any benefits” of the combination treatment, Brown said.