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“I just had a follow up appointment with the doctor and I told him, `I feel like nothing happened,'” Gerry said. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember how serious it was.”
Gerry, 54, credits her quick recovery to skilled doctors and nurses at UNMC’s hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, and a breast cancer radiation therapy called MammoSite.
MammoSite therapy was developed to make it easier for more women to consider lumpectomy or breast conservation.
Despite comparable long-term recurrence and survival rates of breast conservation therapy, the National Institutes of Health reports more than 40 percent of patients with early stage breast cancer still get a mastectomy.
“People are being sold on the idea that removing the whole breast is better than removing the cancerous lump and using radiation therapy,” said Edibaldo Silva, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of surgical oncology at UNMC and surgical oncologist at The Nebraska Medical Center. “We know that is not true.”
Many women often choose a mastectomy because the conventional radiation therapy after a lumpectomy includes daily treatments for six to seven weeks and can be a burden with long daily commutes and unwanted side effects, Dr. Silva said.
MammoSite patients receive 10 treatments — two each day — for five days.
MammoSite delivers targeted radiation therapy directly to the area where cancer is most likely to recur and it only radiates an area two centimeters in diameter around the tumor’s location.
Additionally, the MammoSite targeted therapy of the breast limits radiation exposure to normal, healthy tissue. This helps minimize side effects such as skin discoloration, scarring and burning.
Gerry, who completed the MammoSite therapy in May, didn’t even take time off from work for the treatment.
“It took all of eight minutes, twice a day,” she said.
“In a rural state like Nebraska where commutes are long, it’s a great option for a patient to receive treatment for only five days versus six to seven weeks,” said Andrew Wahl, M.D., assistant professor of radiation oncology and radiation oncologist at The Nebraska Medical Center.
Mammosite is not recommended yet for younger women or women with larger tumors.