Skin reaction in radiation therapy of breast cancer: a pilot study

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and second of fatal cancer in women. Treatment first choice can be breast conserving surgery (BCS) and/or modified radical mastectomy (MRM). Most cases have to receive radiation therapy after surgery. The most common side effect in breast radiotherapy is skin change. In this work, we investigated the severity of acute skin changes and its effective factors.Material and Method: This study was performed as prospective cohort from September 2011 to July 2012 (approximately 10 months) on 31 female patients with BCS followed by radiation therapy (BST) in Shahid Rajaie Babolsar radiotherapy Center. A questionnaire was designed for patients, including the patient s name, file number, sex, age, total dose, types of treatment techniques and etc. Results were analyzed by ANOVA and Fisher s exact tests. The scoring system was RTOG.Result: Average age was 49 ± 13 years (between 18 and 80). None of patients showed degrees of zero and 4 of skin damages. From the patients 58% of them represented degree 1, 35.5% degree 2, and 6.5% degree 3. There was no statically meaningful between aerial skin burns and variables, such as: average tangential field size, internal mammary field, chemotherapy, prior disease, tamoxifen, previous radiotherapy in breast area and also skin types (P> 0.05), but, there was significant relationship between skin burns with presence of supraclavicular field (P=0.05).Conclusion: Given the significant relationship between skin burning with supraclavicular field is recommended to pay special attention to the factors affecting planning supraclavicular field, such as field size, and photon energy.

کلیدواژه ها:

breast radiotherapy ، skin burning ، skin reaction scoring