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30th June 2023
09:57am BST
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Professor Risteárd Ó Laoide, national director, HSE NCCP, said it “will create some additional capacity in the service, meaning more patients can be treated in the same timeframe than previously”.
The main change to the guidelines is the inclusion of specific recommendation which considers an ultra-hypofractionated radiotherapy regimen for suitable patients.
This means that a patient gets their total radiotherapy dose over a shorter timeframe, typically within one week. The new schedule significantly reduces the number of hospital visits required of a patient and allows for more patients to be treated in that same timeframe.“The guideline also considers which patients may benefit from a radiotherapy boost. This is an extra dose of radiation that is targeted at the specific part of the breast from where the tumour was removed (in addition to the radiotherapy given to the whole breast),” the HSE said in a statement.
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