Breast cancer patients experience skin reactions during radiotherapy. Radiation-induced skin reactions can result in treatment delivery being interrupted. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the skincare management of patients receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer in order to inform best practice.

A literature search was undertaken using USearch and HONNI in support of the first-hand evidence gained from the supervised on-treatment review of patients receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer.

There is evidence to suggest that the skincare advice given to patients varies widely between departments in the UK with many not following nationally recommended guidelines. Studies demonstrate that there are ways to reduce skin reactions and that there are a range of effective management strategies being adopted. Prophylactic skincare has been explored to improve the resilience of the skin prior to commencing radiotherapy.

Further investigation is required in order to clearly establish the optimum national skincare management for breast cancer patients. More studies are required to test the effectiveness and viability of prophylactic measures. Skincare guidance needs to be robustly developed and effectively promoted by therapeutic radiographers for radiotherapy patients to benefit from reduced, radiation-induced, skin reactions.

To assess the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on patients receiving radical radiotherapy for carcinoma of the anus in order to compare the present skincare advice at the time of the study with an alternative product, Aveeno, used primarily for dermatological and chemotherapeutic-induced skin conditions.

Standardised Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) grading and skincare assessments were used primarily to inform on physical reactions within a RCT. A pre-existing morbidity/quality-of-life instrument ‘the Head and Neck Radiotherapy Questionnaire’, which was validated for use with radiotherapy patients in preceding studies, was adapted for anus patients and formed the secondary basis for data collection. In all, 24 participants undergoing radical radiotherapy for anal cancer were randomised into two arms, Aveeno cream versus Aqueous Cream BP, and reviewed weekly to collect data and perform analysis and Mann–Whitney U non-parametric statistical tests.

RTOG gradings for skin reactions were comparable week by week across the cohorts, with a baseline 100% of participants exhibiting RTOG 0 at week 1 in all areas, through to week 6 where both cohorts had progressed to higher RTOG grades. The Aveeno cohort, however, indicated a p-value approaching significance in regards to epidermal regeneration at follow-up 1 (p=0·0543). Questionnaires yielded diminishing responses as treatment progressed correlating with advancing RTOG grades, and exhibited increasing negativity in responses in correlation with advancing RTOG grade exhibited.

The study was the first to recognise colloidal oatmeal as a skincare approach in the radiotherapy setting and recognises the potential benefits of Aveeno in radiation-induced skin reactions. The study determined the RTOG grading system to be robust as a method of evaluation of skin reactions and the questionnaires deemed the quality-of-life assessment to be a necessity in order to address patients’ psychological needs in addition to the physical needs.