New cancer treatment to reduce radiation risk to heart

It’s usually an aid to regaining composure, the advice to “take a deep breath”, but for left-sided breast cancer patients, it will vastly reduce radiation doses to the heart.

A new radiotherapy service, Deep Inspiration Breath Hold (DIBH) has been launched at Cork University Hospital (CUH) and should “immediately benefit” 60% of its breast cancer patients”, an average of 180 a year.

In a statement yesterday, the HSE described it as “a unique way of treating patients with left-sided breast cancer”.