Intraoperative radiotherapy of the breast - really a valide option or “only” comfortable

Intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) of the breast is an innovative treatment option for early breast cancer and has rapidly entered clinical practice in the last years. There are several indications using a breast IORT. Generally accepted because of excellent long-term results is the intraoperative tumorbed boost followed by an external whole breast irradiation (WBI) (1,2). Considering that most in-breast tumor recurrences are seen in or near to the initial tumor site (3-7) partial breast irradiation (PBI) as the sole radiotherapy treatment modality is of large interest. Different PBI techniques, such as an IORT with electrons or 50 kV X-rays (Intrabeam^©), the interstitial multicatheter or balloncatheter (Mammosite^©) brachytherapy or also the 3D conformal external beam radiotherapy are in clinical use [overview in (8,9)], whereby no superiority could be shown for one of them.