Pacemaker and radiotherapy in breast cancer: is targeted intraoperative radiotherapy the answer in this setting?

Abstract

Abstract We present the case of an 83 year old woman with a cardiac pacemaker located close in distance to a subsequently diagnosed invasive ductal carcinoma of the left breast. Short range intraoperative radiotherapy was given following wide local excision and sentinel node biopsy. The challenges of using ionising radiation with pacemakers is also discussed.

Keywords

• Pacemaker
• Safety
• Targeted intraoperative radiotherapy (TARGIT)
• INTRABEAM
• Breast cancer