Fat necrosis in women with early-stage breast cancer treated with accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) using interstitial brachytherapy

The Incidence of Fat Necrosis in Balloon-Based Breast Brachytherapy

“…In our study, we found that the incidence of fat necrosis with BBB is similar to that seen with other methods of HDR brachytherapy [12,14,16,17]. While half of our patients were found to have fat necrosis, only 7 patients (14%) were symptomatic.…”

“…As such, much of the focus on recent literature regarding breast brachytherapy has focused on cosmetic outcome and toxicity, given presumed equal efficacy. While numerous reports have analyzed the incidence of and factors contributing to fat necrosis in interstitial brachytherapy, to our knowledge no study has specifically sought to evaluate fat necrosis seen in BBB [12,14,16,17]. Vargo et al found a 10.9% incidence of any fat necrosis and a 3.2% incidence of symptomatic necrosis with the use of MammoSite [5].…”

“…While several studies have evaluated risk factors and incidence of fat necrosis with interstitial brachytherapy, reports dedicated to the evaluation of fat necrosis in BBB are limited [12,14,16,17]. To our knowledge, this is the first study dedicated to the evaluation of fat necrosis specifically in BBB.…”

“…A benign inflammatory process, fat necrosis is commonly caused by trauma but has also been a documented complication from radiotherapy [12][13][14][15][16]. Several studies have evaluated its incidence in brachytherapy, which ranges from 2% to 52% [2,3,5,6,9,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

“…Budrukkar et al reported on their experience treating 171 women with APBI using HDR interstitial brachytherapy [16]. At a median follow-up of 48 months, they found a 12% rate of fat necrosis; 80% of these patients were symptomatic.…”