How effective is radiation therapy for breast cancer?

Very effective.: Radiation therapy (rt) is never a primary treatment for breast cancer, but rather a supplement to surgery for the local treatment of breast cancer. Rt is mandatory following breast conserving surgery: local recurrence rates are decreased from >25% to <5% with rt. Rt is also used after mastectomy for patients that are at high risk for local recurrence.

BreastCA&radiation: Most ladies will have two options for treatment of the primary breast cancer at the time of diagnosis:mastectomy/axillary sampling or breast conserving therapy(bct).Bct is a combo of the removal of the "lump", sample axilla, and radiation to the breast.Both of these options have the same local control rate(meaning the same chance the cancer will come back) and the same cure rate.

Local Recurrence: Radiation is effective for reducing the risk of local recurrence (breast cancer coming back in the breast.).