A pragmatic randomized clinical trial of patients with locally advanced breast cancer randomized to either proton or photon therapy and followed longitudinally for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, health-related quality of life, and cancer control outcomes. Quality of life is the outcome measure for the estimated primary completion date of August, 2022, www.radcomp.org.
Because no one knows which radiation treatment is best, if you decide to take part in this study, you will be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatment groups, and then you will begin radiation treatment according to usual medical practice. Randomly assigning you to a group helps makes sure that each group has a similar mix of patients and makes the study better - and is only done when doctors are not sure whether one treatment is better than the other. You have an equal chance of getting into either treatment group, like a coin flip. Both you and your doctor will be told which treatment you will get.
No matter which group patients are in, doctors will work very carefully to reduce the radiation to healthy tissues. Both groups will followed for at least 10 years after completing radiation therapy. The results of this study will help decide which radiation is best for future patients with your type of breast cancer.