Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak is the first health system in the state to offer the Intrabeam intraoperative radiotherapy system, a new partial radiotherapy treatment option for breast cancer patients.
While a patient is under anesthesia after breast-conserving surgery, specialists can use the Intrabeam system to deliver a single-dose of radiation therapy for 20 to 30 minutes. The one-time dose of radiotherapy is targeted on the area of the breast that will likely have a reoccurrence while cutting down the radiation dose to the rest of the breast.
Dr. Nayana Dekhne, breast surgeon and corporate director of the Breast Care Program at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, says the treatment may be an excellent option for women having a lumpectomy, which is a surgery to remove cancer or other abnormal tissue from the breast.
“Our patients who are eligible for intraoperative radiotherapy like that this new treatment option is easy to understand,” she says. ‘By getting their radiation treatment in one-dose immediately after their lumpectomy, they have the comfort of knowing two procedures have been accomplished under one anesthesia.”
Along with offering the new system, Beaumont Royal Oak is participating in a multi-site research trial called Targit-B to see if having radiotherapy intraoperatively during surgery lowers the chance of the cancer reforming in the breast, and if it reduces the risk of long-term changes to the breasts.
After the initial delivery of radiation, participants in the study will undergo a conventional course of external beam whole breast irradiation as an outpatient, after a full recovery from their lumpectomy surgery.
Beaumont Hospital opened in 1955 and has grown to have eight hospitals, and 168 health centers. Beaumont has received the American College of Radiology Gold Standard for Mammography.
