Post-Operative Radiotherapy to Cancer Breast: is Dose to Contra Lateral Breast is Significant?

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide. With improving survival figures and early breast cancer detection, treatment related long term adverse effects of radiotherapy have become a concern. Contralateral breast cancer due to scattered radiation during radiotherapy of diseased breast is one of them. This prospective clinical study was conducted to measure the dose received by the contralateral breast and compare the different techniques which influence this dose. It was found that in post mastectomy patients, treatment with telecobalt unit, medial tangential field contribute more dose to contralateral breast compared to supraclavicular field and lateral tangential fields. The mean dose received by contralateral breast during irradiation of chest wall was 168.29 cGy which was 3.36 percentage of the prescribed dose.