No accrual

RATIONALE: Breast-conserving surgery is a less invasive type of surgery for breast cancer and may have fewer side effects and improve recovery. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Giving radiation therapy after surgery may kill any tumor cells that remain after surgery.

PURPOSE: This phase II clinical trial is studying how well breast-conserving surgery followed by radiation therapy works in treating patients with stage I or stage II breast cancer.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To determine ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence rates as well as tumor bed recurrence rates. Patients will be followed for a period of five years following completion of radiation to determine these rates.

II. To determine the cosmetic outcome resulting from breast conserving surgery and breast radiation.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To determine if there are patient factors which limit a patient's suitability to receive breast conserving therapy in the setting of multi-centric disease.

II. To determine patient satisfaction of breast conserving therapy as it pertains to their overall treatment experience as measured by a questionnaire.

III. To evaluate wound healing and overall complication rate after radiation as a component of breast conserving therapy.

OUTLINE:

Patients undergo breast-conserving surgery consisting of partial mastectomies followed by external beam breast radiation therapy 5 days a week for 5 weeks in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

After completion of study treatment, patients are followed at 1 month, then every 3 months for 1 year, every 6 months for 1 year, and then annually for 5 years.

Inclusion

• Patients with multicentric carcinoma (tumors in different quadrants of the breast or tumors separated by at least 4 cm)
• All radiographically suspicious lesions must be biopsied and have histologically confirmed ductal carcinoma in-situ, invasive ductal, invasive lobular, medullary, papillary, colloid (mucinous), or tubular histologies
• A maximum of two radiographically detected malignant lesions
• Clinical Stage I-II breast carcinoma, with lesion size =< 5 cm for the dominant mass and the second lesion detected only on MRI, treated with lumpectomies; the MRI detected lesion must be pathologically =< 1 cm
• Axillary lymph node evaluation, either sentinel lymph node biopsy or axillary dissection as deemed appropriate by the treating surgeon for all patients with invasive cancer; no axillary lymph node sampling is needed for patients with DCIS
• Negative resection margins with at least a 2 mm margin from invasive and in-situ cancer or a negative re-excision
• A posterior margin =< 2 mm from DCIS is permissible provided fascia was taken
• Patients are eligible regardless of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, or Her-2/neu amplification
• Hormonal therapy is allowed; if adjuvant chemotherapy is planned, the chemotherapy should be delivered first and radiation must begin no earlier than three weeks and no later than eight weeks following completion of chemotherapy
• Signed study-specific informed consent prior to study entry

Exclusion

• Extensive intraductal component by the Harvard definition (i.e., more than 25% of the invasive tumor is DCIS and DCIS present in adjacent breast tissue)
• Palpable or radiographically suspicious contralateral axillary, ipsilateral or contralateral supraclavicular, infraclavicular, or internal mammary lymph nodes unless these are histologically confirmed negative
• Patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy
• Patients with distant metastatic disease detected by radiographic imaging; specific studies for systemic imaging should be obtained as directed by localized symptoms or per available NCCN guidelines
• Patients with known BRCA 1/BRCA 2 mutations or those with predicted risk of carrying the mutation by BRCAPRO (44) risk assessment >= 50%
• Diffuse calcifications throughout the breast
• Patients with skin involvement or inflammatory breast cancer
• Patients with Paget's disease of the nipple
• Patients nonepithelial breast malignancies such as lymphoma or sarcoma
• Patients with collagen vascular disorders, specifically systemic lupus erythematosis, scleroderma, or dermatomyositis
• Patients with psychiatric, neurologic, or addictive disorders that would preclude obtaining informed consent
• Other malignancy, except non-melanomatous skin cancer, < 5 years prior to participation in this study
• Patients who are pregnant or lactating, due to potential fetal exposure to radiation and unknown effects of radiation on lactating females