BMI Healthcare hospitals adopt new IORT therapies for breast cancer

BMI Healthcare has announced that its Chelsfield Park Hospital in Orpington and Bishops Wood Hospital in Northwood will be the first in the UK to utilise a new form of radiation therapy for breast cancer.

The Xoft Axxent Electronic Brachytherapy System represents a new single-dose form of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) for early stage 1 and 2 breast cancer patients and is performed during surgery to remove the breast tumour.

As such, it can eliminate the need for a post-surgical treatment regimen of three to five weeks of external beam radiation, allowing patients to return to their normal daily routines as quickly as possible.

It also helps to reduce care costs and makes radiation therapy options accessible to more people.

Consultant oncologist Dr Nihal Shah at BMI Bishops Wood Hospital said: "For these patients, a one-time radiation treatment is ideal and obviates the need for multiple trips associated with whole breast radiotherapy."

BMI Healthcare owns 69 hospitals and treatment centres across the country, with its facilities boasting a 99 percent patient satisfaction rating of good, very good or excellent.