Researchers from NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center recently initiated a new study to better understand how to grade radiation dermatitis—which is typically measured subjectively on the basis of skin redness—in patients with darker skin types receiving radiation therapy for breast cancer, according to a press release from NYU Langone Health. The new single-arm, nontherapeutic trial will aim to demonstrate a grading system that more widely reflects patients with skin of color, whose skin may turn tan or acutely hyperpigmented when undergoing radiation therapy. “We think radiation dermatitis is underdiagnosed in those patients because we are not considering acute tanning of the skin to be inflammation related to radiation treatment,” explained lead investigator Juhi Purswani, MD, a postgraduate resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Involving 80 patients undergoing partial-breast, whole-breast, or chest wall radiation therapy, the researchers will use a spectrophotometer to measure the baseline skin color and any changes in skin color that occur during ultrahypofractionation, hyperfractionation, and conventional radiation therapy every week during the treatment, and then again at 2 weeks, 1 month, and 1 year following treatment. The researchers hope that the results of the study will signal the need for an objective grading scale to more accurately assess radiation dermatitis across all skin types and develop individualized intervention strategies.
May 25, 2023