The St. Louis Cancer & Breast Institute is the first in the state of Missouri to offer the latest radiation technique for early-stage breast cancer—breast brachy­therapy with the Mammosite Radiation Therapy System. After lumpectomy, the Mammosite balloon is placed inside the tu­mor resection cavity and filled with saline to allow the breast tissue to conform to the balloon.

A high-dose-rate radiation source is inserted into the bal­loon catheter to deliver a highly conformal dose directly to the margins of the resected tumor, while reducing damage to the surrounding vital organ struc­tures. The entire course of radi­ation treatment is delivered in five days, compared to seven weeks for standard radiation therapy, after which the balloon catheter is removed. This ap­proach combines a highly re-producible technique with dra­matically shortened treatment time for patients with early stage, small tumors. The device is FDA approved and has shown comparable results to conven­tional radiation in early studies.

The Mammosite Breast Brachytherapy technique re-quires close communication be­tween the surgical and radiation oncology specialists, already a unique strength at the Institute. Surgical oncologists Dr. Marlys Schuh, Dr. Diane Radford and Dr. Jovita Oruwari, radiation oncologists Dr. Delia Garcia and Dr. Michael Beat, and radiation physicist Todd Grigereit, Ph.D., have been specially trained to perform this procedure.