Surgeons
Participants
A total of 49 participants representing 33 (49%) of a total of 68 hospitals providing breast cancer care completed the survey. Demographics of the respondents are shown in Table 1.
Surgical treatment experiences and arguments
Ninety-eight percent of all surgeons report that an IBTR is treated in their hospital. According to 77.6% of the responders, a salvage mastectomy is the gold standard in case of IBTR, whereas 28.6% consider a repeat BCT to be feasible in some cases. Forty-nine percent of the surgeons report to have experience with repeat BCT for IBTR in their practice. In all cases, this was outside the context of a clinical study. Table 2 shows the breast surgeons’ responses to questions on their experience with and attitude towards repeat BCT.
Differentiating between new primary tumour and 'true' recurrence
Slightly more than half of the respondents (57.1%) reported to differentiate between a new primary tumour (NP) and a 'true' recurrence (TR), of which 39.3% use clonality testing to differentiate. This was not significantly different between surgeons working in university hospitals/specialized oncology clinics and non-university or community hospitals (p = 0.166). Arguments pro and against differentiating between TR and NPT are listed in Table 3.
When asked for factors influencing the perceived probability of a true recurrence, the surgeons selected the following tumour characteristics in order of importance:
1) within or adjacent to the primary lumpectomy scar (cumulative score of 245 points)
2) same quadrant of the breast as primary tumour (cumulative score of 181 points)
3) receptor status (HER2, progesterone and estrogen expression) (cumulative score of 170 points)
4) similar tumour subtype (e.g. ductal, lobular carcinoma) as primary tumour (cumulative score of 169 points)
5) time to recurrence (cumulative score of 162 points)
6) clonality comparison (cumulative score of 157 points)
Two surgeons added the options:
7) within the biopsy track of the primary tumour
8) age
Dissemination workup
In case of IBTR, 26.5% of the surgeons always perform a full staging preoperative workup to assess for regional and distant metastasis, whereas 59.2% only performed this in case of a 'true' recurrence, and 10% only in case of clinical suspicion of distant metastasis. The majority of surgeons (91.2%) prefer PET-CT for this workup and 9.8% use a CT-scan of the chest and abdomen and a bone scintigraphy. A standard ultrasound (US) of the ipsilateral axilla is performed by 87.8% of surgeons, whereas 6% do this always bilaterally, 4% only perform an axillary US in case of palpable lymph nodes and 2% only after positive lymph nodes on a PET-CT scan.
Surgical treatment of the axilla
The majority of surgeons (85.7%) prefer to perform an rSLNB first. Most surgeons choose to omit an ALND in case of a negative rSLNB (91.8%), and 51% do the same in case of a positive rSLNB. Seven surgeons (14.3%) perform an ALND without a rSLNB, of which six (12.2%) after a positive cytologic biopsy of the axilla (cN+) and one (2%) in all patients with IBTR. Nine surgeons (18.4%) rely on a negative cytologic biopsy to omit both rSLNB and ALND.
When an ALND has already been performed during surgery for the primary tumour, 65.3% of surgeons omit a repeat ALND.
Radiation oncologists
Participants
Twenty radiation oncologists representing 14 (70%) of a total of 20 breast cancer radiotherapy institutes filled out the survey. Demographics of the respondents are shown in Table 1.
Re-irradiation in repeat BCT
An IBTR was treated in 90% of the respondents' hospitals (at least surgically). Forty-five percent of the radiation oncologists regard a salvage mastectomy as the gold standard. The others (55%) agree that in some cases a repeat BCT could be feasible.
Half of the respondents (50%) reported to have experience with (re)irradiation of an IBTR. Of these, 30% only had experience with whole-breast re-irradiation and 70% also with partial breast re-irradiation after repeat lumpectomy.
Table 2 shows the responses of the radiation oncologists on their attitude towards repeat BCT.
Twenty percent of the radiation oncologists remain sceptical towards a second course of radiotherapy and would probably never consider it. About 75% of the respondents would be prepared to consider re-irradiation, under selected circumstances and with more available evidence for its safety and feasibility.
Technique preferences
All participants considering re-irradiation for IBTR prefer PBI above WBI. Ten percent would rather apply brachytherapy, 10% intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) and 25% external beam PBI. All others did not specify a preferred technique for PBI.
Differentiating between new primary tumour and 'true' recurrence
Sixty percent of the respondents differentiate between NP and TR (see Table 3). The following factors are regarded important in differentiating between NP and TR, in order of importance:
1) clonality analysis (used by 36.4% of radiation oncologists differentiating between NP and TR) (cumulative score of 95 points)
2) IBTR in scar of primary lumpectomy (cumulative score of 85 points)
3) time to recurrence (shorter is more prone to be a TR) (cumulative score of 79 points)
4) receptor status identical to primary tumour (cumulative score of 67 points)
5) identical tumour type (IDC/ILC) as primary tumour (cumulative score of 66 points)
6) IBTR in same quadrant as primary tumour (cumulative score of 61 points)
Breast surgeons vs. radiation oncologists
Demographics and group composition between breast surgeons and radiation oncologists did not differ significantly (see Table 1). When asked whether they would consider a repeat BCT when feasible, 28.9% of breast surgeons and 55% of radiation oncologists replied in a positive way (p = 0.008).