Silicon Dressing Protects Skin During Breast Cancer Radiation

A silicon based dressing can help in reducing the major side effects associated with radiation therapy for breast cancer, a team of researchers exploring new ways to tackle the issue say.

In the country, every year, nearly 226,870 women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and about 39,510 die from breast cancer.

According to BreastCancer.org, radiation therapy or radiotherapy is one of the useful ways to destroy cancer cells that survive in the area even after surgery and cuts the risks of breast cancer recurrence by 70 percent.

However, radiation therapy damages normal and healthy cells near the treatment area and lead to painful skin reactions like sunburn, changing color of the skin into pink or red with soreness, itching, burning and peeling. This happens particularly when the clothing comes in contact with the damaged skin. At present, there is hardly any treatment available to treat this condition.

Lead researcher Dr. Patries Herst and colleagues looked at 80 women treated for radiation therapy for breast cancer and found silicone -based dressings protecting body against the painful skin reactions of radiation therapy than regular aqueous cream, an emollient used to treat dry skin conditions.

For the study, the researchers divided the treatment area into two sections - one treated with silicon dressings and the other with aqueous control cream.

A significant number of patients reported silicon dressing more effective in reducing skin reactions plus easy to use and wear.

"These results will be of great benefit to people undergoing radiation therapy for breast and head and neck cancers as radiation can cause severe skin reactions by damaging the cells responsible for skin renewal and this really impacts on their quality of life," lead researcher Dr Patries Herst, Department of Radiation Therapy, University of Otago, Wellington, said in a news release.

The study has been published in the journal Cancer Science and Therapy.