BGICC 2023: Breast contouring workshop

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Published: 2 Feb 2023
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Prof Philip Poortmans - University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Prof Philip Poortmans speaks to ecancer about his breast cancer contouring workshop at the BGICC 2023.

He expressed the importance of target volume definition and delineation for the best overall cosmetic outcome.

And then I come to my last topic. My last topic was on Friday morning, three hours long. That was a contouring workshop for breast because you can have the best machines, the best treatment schedules, the best whatever; if you don’t contour the right volumes you will be never in optimal shape. That’s why target volume definition and delineation are of utmost importance – it all starts there. 

I focussed this time on target volume contouring for the entire breast; I made a little bit an extension to the chest wall but the topic was especially for the boost and for partial breast irradiation. The boost should in general be given to an as small as possible volume because the side effects – fibrosis and impact on cosmetic outcome – are much more important if you treat a large volume. For partial breast irradiation it’s a mixture of keeping the volume limited to limit the impact on cosmesis and, on the other hand, of course, not missing residual tumour cells and thereby maintaining optimal tumour control.

So those were my three presentations. Next year BGICC will be organised again. The central topic this year was HER2 positive disease; we had a consensus meeting at the end of the congress in which I participated as well with voting of just below sixty questions in total. This will be written in a paper which will be, similar to last year, published in a couple of months. Next year’s topic is not decided yet; if I receive an invitation and it fits into my schedule I will, for sure, strongly consider to accept it again. Thank you very much, I hope it was of great interest for you.