Breast Cancer

In recent years, a new approach has been gaining ground in the treatment of breast cancer. Radical surgical methods are being replaced by less-invasive, breast-conserving therapy. Such a trend is now also appearing in radiotherapy. For certain patients, radiation oncologists are moving away from the current, largely standardized treatment plan to risk-adapted, tailored radiotherapy using intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT). Unlike the traditional irradiation, radiotherapy with the INTRABEAM^® from ZEISS* directly irradiates the tumor bed, sparing surrounding healthy tissue. During the operation and immediately after the tumor is excised an approximate 30-minute irradiation procedure is performed. The standard approximate six weeks of post-op irradiation may be reduced.

INTRABEAM has been studied for more than 13 years and over 8,000 patients have received treatment for early breast cancer. It has been exclusively used to develop the targeted intraoperative radiotherapy technique implemented in the TARGIT-A Trial - a highly reputable international consortium that studies the efficacy of IORT in the treatment of early breast cancer versus traditional external beam radiotherapy (EBRT).

Targeted IORT with INTRABEAM is a risk-adapted individualized therapy that delivers low-energy X-rays directly into the tumor bed at the time of surgery (after tumor excision). During this procedure, the radiation is applied using a spherical applicator in a way that ensures direct contact with the target tissue. Radiation is delivered precisely to the area with the highest risk of tumor recurrence while minimizing radiation to healthy tissue.