ROLE OF SUPERVOLTAGE IRRADIATION OF REGIONAL LYMPH NODE BEARING AREAS IN BREAST CANCER

¹ From the Department of Radiotherapy, Francis Delafield Hospital, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, New York

It is shown that definitive radiotherapy with megavolt irradiation is capable of destroying metastatic disease in regional lymph nodes in various patient groups with proved metastatic carcinoma in such lymph nodes.

Radiotherapy to large metastatic internal mammary lymph nodes, which had appeared after radical mastectomy, has kept 6 out of 20 patients alive for more than 5 years. Postoperative radiotherapy has, as reported in the literature, increased the number of patients who have survived 5 years by 5 to 10 per cent—a figure which we feel is significant.

In a series of cases receiving radiotherapy as the exclusive treatment for carcinoma of the breast with microscopically proved distant lymph node metastases, 52 per cent of the patients lived for 5 years. In addition, a number of patients who came to autopsy showed no evidence of disease anywhere in the body, and in others no residual disease in previously treated lymph nodes was found. This appears to verify the clinical findings and observations; namely, that megavolt irradiation has an undisputable place in the management of patients with metastatic disease from primary carcinoma of the breast.

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