New Advancement Offers Hope on World Cancer Day

Today, February 4, is World Cancer Day, and there is a new source of hope on the horizon for the nearly 300,000 women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. And it's as simple as body position.

Traditionally breast cancer patients lie on their backs when receiving radiation therapy, but being in this position can potentially cause damage to one's heart and lung tissue. Research shows that simply changing positions can change the outcome for some breast cancer patients. Doctors are getting better results simply by turning patients over on their stomachs during radiation treatment.

By using a special prone therapy board developed in part by Dr. Julia White, doctors at Ohio State's James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute say they can not only reduce a patient's' risk to healthy tissue, but preserve the shape of the breast as well. This modified treatment board that allows patients to lie on their stomach in the prone position during radiation treatment is proving more effective for breast cancer patients.

"The prone board allows gravity to pull the breast away from the chest wall, and create a more uniform shape that we can distribute the dose of radiation through evenly," said White, director of Breast Radiation Oncology at the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center. "With this board, we can keep the radiation in front of the ribs, so we don't even need to go into the thoracic cavity and skim the lung and heart."

Each patient uses a bean bag or "vac bag" that is customized to their shape and used to immobilize their arms during the treatment. Additionally, the modified board is able to extend off the treatment table, giving the radiation beam space to make a full rotation around the patient.

Traditional radiation therapy has been associated with long-term problems in the shape of the affected breast, with good cosmetic outcomes found in only 60-to-70 percent of cases.

"By turning a woman over onto her stomach, we can treat the breast underneath the board and reduce the risk of the treatment leaving permanent effects," said White. "We found that we are able to have a really good rate of a good cosmetic outcome in 80-to-90 percent of the women who go through this treatment."

These modifications ease concerns of patients like Kim Doran of New Albany, OH, who have a family history of heart disease.

"Both my parents passed away from heart attacks. So, having that history of heart disease, my main concern was the radiation affecting my heart," said Doran, "It made me feel a hundred percent better to know that that's the procedure I needed to have."

White says that the women who take advantage of the prone-position breast board are typically women who caught their breast cancer early, who've opted to have a lumpectomy and hope to preserve as much of the breast tissue and shape of the original breast as possible.

Recent studies show prone radiation therapy cuts the amount of lung and heart tissue affected by radiation therapy by 90 percent.

White developed the board with Qfix, a world leader in radiotherapy patient positioning and immobilization.