Women with early breast cancer can benefit from fewer 'draining' radiotherapy treatments, lowering the risk of long-term side effects.

A major study suggests giving higher doses of radiotherapy but cutting down on their number provides results that are 'at least as good' as the standard regime.

Women with breast cancer in the early stages would need to make fewer hospital visits in the future if the slimmed down therapy programme was universally adopted.

Findings from British researchers carrying out 10-years of research involving nearly 4,500 women with early breast cancer are published today in The Lancet and The Lancet Oncology.

Many cancer specialists in the UK have been using shorter treatment schedules for some time but the latest evidence will confirm the efficacy of the approach.

In trials, jointly funded by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health, just under half the women received the international standard of radiotherapy which involves 25 treatments, carried out five times a week over five weeks.

The remainder received around 20 per cent lower dose of radiation on 13 different occasions in either three or five weeks.

Researchers then compared the rate of cancer recurrence in the treated breast along with the effects of the treatment on surrounding healthy breast tissue.

After an average follow-up of five to six years, the rate of recurrence in the breast remained very low for patients in each of the treatment groups studied.

Overall, there was a low rate of side effects such as swelling, breast shrinkage and hardening of healthy tissue, and a slightly lower rate of 'late adverse effects' in women receiving shorter treatments.

Lead researcher Professor John Yarnold, from The Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital, said: "The results suggest that a high total dose given in 25 small treatments is no better than simpler schedules using fewer exposures to a lower total dose.