According to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, radiation therapy appears to substantially benefit older patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a noninvasive cancer of the breast's milk duct.

Benjamin D. Smith, M.D., of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and colleagues used the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database to identify 3,409 women age 66 and over who had undergone conservative surgery for DCIS. They examined whether additional treatment with radiation therapy was associated with lower risks for subsequent mastectomy or invasive breast cancer.

The authors found that radiation therapy was associated with lower risk of subsequent mastectomy and invasive breast cancer in both low- and high-risk patients. Radiation therapy was associated with a 68% reduction in the relative risk for a second breast cancer event.

SOURCE:
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, September 20, 2006