Treatment, Quickly Vetted, Is Offered to Breast Cancer Patients

There is a new treatment for breast cancer which is up for debate. The treatment is a new form of Interstitial Brachytherapy called Mammosite Brachytherapy. The former treatment would include rows of plastic catheters being inserted to the breast, and each would be connected to a small button which would release radioactive seeds to the tumor site twice a day for five days. However, the new treatment features a single balloon catheter temporarily inserted to the tumor site and inflated to fill the surgical site, and the catheter is left for five days also releasing radioactive seeds twice a day fr five days (Abelson).

Many people are questioning the FDA's approval of the new method since it has only been on the market for about 5 years and there is not as much data to support the method as there are for other treatment options. The FDA defends itself by saying that the new product proved itself to be "substantially equivalent" to other methods. For many patients this is simply not enough.

My Grandmother was a breast cancer survivor and she also tried a procedure that was considered fairly new at the time, and is now a common practice for breast cancer patients called, Accelerated Whole Breast Irradiation. This procedure was experimental and involves higher doses of radiation on the entire breast five times a week for three weeks in total. This was also thought by many patients to be harmful or ineffective, but it saved my Grandmother.

I feel that innovation is a part of science and there will always be new theories and new procedures to try when it comes to the medical field, and they should be embraced because that experimental new method might just be the treatment that saves your loved one.