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News Flash 5 June 2010: TARGIT-A trial results published in the Lancet Online First
TARGIT is an acronym for (TARGeted Intraoperative radioTherapy). TARGIT is a procedure of giving radiotherapy (radiation treatment) to the tissues surrounding a breast cancer (tumour bed) in the operating theatre (operating room) after its surgical removal.
The rationale of TARGIT is to accurately target the tissues where there is the highest risk of cancer returning. The technique was designed in 1998 at the University College London by Jayant S Vaidya and Michael Baum along with Jeffrey Tobias. One can say that TARGIT is a special method of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT).
The TARGIT-A trial is a randomized controlled clinical trial to test whether radiation treatment given by the single-dose TARGIT procedure is equivalent to conventional course of external beam postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer which is normally given to the whole breast over a course of several weeks.
The TARGIT A trial results will be presented at the ASCO meeting in Chicago in June 2010 at the
Targeting radiotherapy to the tumor bed after breast cancer is surgically removed means it can be delivered accurately, at the time of surgery, does not delay adjuvant chemotherapy, and could allow breast conserving surgery (rather than mastectomy) when the 5 or 6-week course of postoperative radiotherapy is not desirable or practical.
History, scientific publications and papers, presentations, operative videos are available at the TARGIT Trial and results website
Click below for more information about Targeted Intra-operative Radiotherapy (TARGIT) for breast cancer.