As data bases mature, more in-depth analyses of results, with special attention to late dose and volume effects and second cancers, are appearing in the literature. In the continuing effort to minimize late effects, the importance of the boost dose is being reexamined, in relationship to the increasingly sophisticated margin information now available from most pathology laboratories. As well, patients are increasingly being grouped by various risk factors into subsets rather than receiving standard management as dictated by their stage of disease. This year the special needs of the elderly patient is being focused on, with regard to the need for dissecting the axilla and observations regarding the role of tamoxifen in both distant and local control.
