Effect of Radiation Therapy

Locally advanced breast cancer has high-risk local regional recurrence after surgery. Radiotherapy could reduce the local regional recurrence and improve disease free survival and overall survival. Regional lymph node irradiation is the important part of breast cancer radiotherapy. However, there are some controversies about regional lymph node delineation, especially the supraclavicular irradiation volume. Many studies had confirmed that posterolateral region of the supraclavicular fossa (also named Posterior neck lymph node) had a high risk involvement based on the mapping of recurrence nodes. This randomized phase III trial compares medial supraclavicular lymph node irradiation with entire supraclavicular lymph node irradiation in patients with pathologically positive axillary lymph node and high risk of recurrence after mastectomy or breast conservative surgery. It is not yet known if radiation works better with entire supraclavicular fossa than medial supraclavicular fossa.