Course Report

Multidisciplinary Management of Breast Cancer

PDF Version

16-19 April 2023, Naples, Italy

Course director:

• Philip Poortmans, radiation oncologist, Iridium Netwerk & University of Antwerp, Belgium

 

Could you please briefly introduce yourself? 

My name is Sugandi Hartanto, and I am a radiation oncologist at Santosa Hospital Cancer Centre in West Java, Indonesia. This is my eighth year of practice.

Why did you choose to attend this course? 

I attended this course because, in our hospital, the greatest number of patients with cancer are those with breast cancer. I felt that this course would give me an excellent and in-depth, advanced overview of the multidisciplinary treatment of breast cancers to improve and update my knowledge regarding the management of these patients. It is also an area that I am considering for my clinical research interest.

What aspects of the course were most interesting to you and why? 

I was particularly interested in the sessions on contouring, which may show inter-observer variability. I found this session significantly useful. Also, I enjoyed very much the discussion about when and why the target volume is delineated; this discussion really helped to frame radiation therapy planning in breast cancer.

Did the course activities improve your knowledge and skills in the relevant subject? 

The course has indeed improved and deepened my knowledge of various aspects. The course enabled me to benchmark my knowledge of the subject. I found the contouring homework and the discussions on various topics very useful.

Did your course meet your expectations? If so, how?  

The course exceeded my expectations. From the contouring through the lectures and clinical research updates into the discussions, I felt the lecturers were so engaging and able to cover a comprehensive multimodality of breast cancer. It would be very useful if there was a session on the management of advanced breast cancer, because such cases are quite common in developing countries.

List three important takeaways following the course  

• Discuss with multidisciplinary colleagues the balance between the benefits and side effects of various treatment options for breast cancer, accounting for prognostic factors and patient-related characteristics.
• Learn, know and understand the what, when and why of delineation: whether it is a chest wall only or is involved in all or a certain number of lymph nodes, based on the guidelines.
• Collect all detailed information of the treatment planning in your daily practice, enrol on a clinical trial and improve your practice based on the trial findings.

How will what you have learned be implemented in your daily clinical practice?  

The knowledge I gained regarding contouring, the clinical research updates about target volume delineation, and radiation therapy planning including the techniques of radiation and doses, are all relatable to my work and I will apply them definitely in my daily practice. The course has increased my awareness of the importance of understanding the surgical procedures that impact the planning of radiation therapy.

How would you encourage someone who has never been to an ESTRO course to join this course?  

I strongly encourage people to attend this course as it gives a comprehensive overview of multimodality treatment of breast cancer that is relatable to daily practice. Moreover, the atmosphere during the course that was created by the organiser and lecturer teams was very welcoming and helpful. The online resources available to participants were also very useful. The course is comprehensive as it covers all the important aspects of the management of breast-cancer cases.

Sugandi Hartanto
Radiation oncologist
Santosa Hospital,
West Java, Indonesia
gandi1982@yahoo.com