Your Support Launches a Groundbreaking Study for High-Risk Women
BRIGHT Run participated in the Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation’s call for funding proposals in the spring of 2025. Two new projects are now being funded through your fundraising efforts! Here is an outline of the second project.
Project Title: A Randomized Feasibility Trial of Contralateral Breast Radiation to prevent Contralateral Breast Cancer in BRCA1/2 Carriers and Unilateral Breast Cancer Treated with Breast Conserving Surgery
Principal Investigators: Andrea Eisen,Tim Whelan
Co-Investigators: Louise Bordeleau, Elena Parvez, Jonathan Sussman, Greg]Pond, Karen Zhang
Lay Abstract:
Women with inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations face a high risk of developing breast cancer in both breasts. When diagnosed with cancer in one breast, many women choose breast-conserving therapy (lumpectomy followed by radiation) instead of removing both breasts. However, the healthy breast remains at significant risk for future cancer.
The only widely accepted way to reduce that risk is preventive mastectomy, which many women decline. Recent research suggests that applying radiation to both breasts, rather than just the one affected by cancer, may lower the risk of developing cancer in the other breast. A small, early study showed that this approach could reduce risk by 80 per cent, with limited side effects. However, this has never been tested in a larger, randomized clinical trial.
Our study will determine whether it is feasible to run a larger trial of this approach. We will recruit women with BRCA mutations and unilateral breast cancer who choose breast-conserving therapy. They will be asked whether they are willing to be randomly assigned to receive radiation to one breast or both. Those who agree will receive radiation to the other breast or not.
