 Treating early-stage breast cancer. Hello, my name is Dr. Elizabeth Nichols and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Today, we'll be drawing outside the lines explaining the GammaPod, which is a unique radiation therapy system designed to treat early-stage breast cancer. The GammaPod was designed and invented here at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In the United States, roughly 330,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Roughly two-thirds of those women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at an early stage, which has a very high curate associated with it. Early-stage breast cancers are typically treated with a surgical umpectomy where the surgeon will actually remove the tumor plus a rim of normal tissue around it to achieve what's called negative margins. Following the surgery, patients often undergo radiation therapy, which helps decrease the risk of recurrence within the breast or what we call local recurrence. Radiation therapy can either be delivered to the whole breast where we target the entire breast tissue or the partial breast where we again target the surgical cavity where the tumor used to be located. Whole breast radiation is typically delivered over 20 to 30 sessions whereas partial breast radiation can be delivered in a much lower number of fractions as well as it can be associated with a decrease in short-term side effects. The GammaPod is a unique radiation therapy system all designed around the treatment of partial breast radiation. Unlike our normal radiation machines which can treat all types of cancers, everything about the GammaPod is designed around partial breast radiation for our early-stage breast cancer patients. As a result, the GammaPod results in pinpoint accuracy and allows us to treat patients in a shorter number of treatments. The way the GammaPod works is we first start off by placing the breast in a mode which helps prevent movement of the breast from things like motion or breathing. This mode uses a slight suction seal to hold the breast in place and that again allows for our pinpoint accuracy. The suction is very similar to a commercially available breast pump. Patients then step onto a special treatment table where they start off in the vertical position and then are lowered into the horizontal or prone position. This allows the breast tissue to be pulled away from the chest wall which can help protect our heart and our lung. Once the treatment is actually started, we again target the surgical cavity where the tumor used to be located and the radiation is delivered at multiple different beam angles, typically over 100 angles, which can allow for a very high dose of radiation to our target and minimal dose of radiation to our normal tissues. This allows for maximal sparing of our normal breast tissue, our ribs, our heart and our lung which can be located in the chest cavity. The GammaPod is associated with less short-term and long-term side effects than our traditional radiation therapy. The most common side effects women experience are fatigue and skin reactions significantly reduced with the GammaPod treatment. To learn more about the GammaPod, please visit our website and ask your physician if this treatment may be appropriate for you.