Background and objectives:
Patients with breast cancer have high risk of loco regional and/or distant failure. The loco regional
failure rate depending mainly on the disease stage and the adjuvant treatment. Prospective randomized
clinical trials have shown promising results with hypo-fractionated schedules for whole breast irradiation.
Concurrent chemo radiotherapy is the standard for many solid tumors; it is promising to be investigated in
breast cancer. In this study, our aim is to evaluate the toxicity, feasibility, and efficacy of concurrent
capecitabine with adjuvant radiotherapy in breast cancer.
Patients and methods: Data of 97 patients with stage II and III breast cancer after surgery and adjuvant
chemotherapy, randomized into two groups, group A: 47 patients received concurrent chemoradiation and
group B : 50 patients received radiotherapy alone. Patients were assessed for treatment toxicity and local
recurrence.
Results: The incidence of acute and late toxicities was comparable in both treatment groups without grade
III/IV early toxicity; only a mild increase in gastrointestinal side effects was observed with capecitabine.
Most of the late radiation adverse effects were grade I/II. Regarding efficacy, the concurrent capecitabine
arm had better disease control locally(P value = 0.01).and better disease free survival (DFS) (P value =
0.048).
Conclusion: Concurrent capecitabine with adjuvant hypofractionated radiotherapy is highly feasible, safe,
and effective.