Synchronous bilateral breast cancer patients submitted to conservative treatment and brachytherapy - The experience of a service.

INTRODUCTION: The incidence of breast carcinoma (BC) has increased in the last years. Between 2 and 12% of patients diagnosed with BC will develop bilateral breast carcinoma (BBC). The treatment of these carcinomas is more aggressive than unilateral BC.

PURPOSE: To perform a retrospective qualitative analysis of BBC patients whose treatment has included brachytherapy (BT) and to present a revised literature on this issue.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The cases of BBC whose treatment included brachytherapy were revised. The literature on this issue was refreshed.

RESULTS: Five women, aged between 54 and 78 at the time of the diagnosis, submitted to conservative surgery followed by external radiotherapy (RT) with boost of BT or exclusive BT (APBI), in the IPO-P BT Service between 2003 and 2016.

DISCUSSION: The patients with BBC have slightly higher rates of local recurrences, mostly in the tumor bed, where there is a higher risk of local recurrence. Patients treated with BT had lower rates of recurrences than those treated with photons and electrons.

CONCLUSIONS: BBC represents a complex challenge for doctors, because in some cases there is a tendency to use more aggressive treatments and, at the same time, it is not easy to achieve the timing for the correct treatment.