The data for one fraction look very good. That data certainly look better than RT omission data.
There are various possible outcomes from here. None of them are good for the health of our specialty. Five fraction is very bad for the health of the specialty. I have “modeled” it, but it’s not rocket science. It means about 60-80% less breast cancer patients on beam per day. Breast cancer patients make up on average about 40 to 50% of all definitive patients under beam per day. Do people realize what an absolute death blow 5 fraction will be to smaller departments? They can not and will not survive. And one fraction will decrease your breast patient load by 80% versus 5 fraction…
So, again, possibilities/choices… Under APM, one and five fraction breast will become standards. If APM doesn’t happen, there will be slow continued resistance to 5 fraction. But there will be growing competition as larger centers bite the bullet and make it their standard, thereby slowly making it the standard everywhere. Which again means closures/job difficulties etc. (One percent of all breast patients/all stages get more than 15 fractions in the UK now, and 60% get five fraction… and ~none of the five fx pts get >26 Gy.)
Sharks and sea monsters,
@RadsWFA1900