West Georgia breast cancer patient learns breathing technique to protect her heart during radiation

Breathing techniques aids women during breast cancer treatment

Christa Smith is a school administrator and learned a simple breathing technique which possibly helped protect her heart while she received radiation to treat breast cancer.

ATLANTA - Christa Smith, an Assistant Superintendent for Bremen City Schools, was at her desk January 2021, when she got the call she had breast cancer.  

As she drove home to break the news to her husband, Smith says she realized she would get through the difficult months ahead.

"A song was on the radio, 'It's gonna be okay,' and those were the very words that I heard," she remembers.  "And I knew right then that that was God saying, 'It's going to be okay.'

Today, Smith is okay; she is now a breast cancer survivor.

But, to get to this point, she went through 2 cancer surgeries and 21 radiation treatments.

Dr. Anil Dhople, a radiation oncologist and medical director at Tanner Medical Center's Department of Radiation Oncology, says radiation has been a mainstay in treating breast cancer for decades.

But, for some women, especially those treated years ago for tumors in their left breast, the side of the chest where the heart is located, the treatments came with a price.

"One of the things we've noticed, as time has gone by, is women treated years ago were living long enough to develop some long-term complications, particularly around the heart," Dhople explains.

Researchers found women treated with breast radiation, were developing chest pain, coronary artery disease, inflammation of the heart.

"In the old days, radiation was just delivered, and there was no attempt to spare the heart," Dr. Dhople says.

But, for Christa Smith, Tanner Medical Center radiation oncology team used two techniques to protect her heart, starting with teaching Smith to take in a deep breath and hold it for about 20 seconds during her treatments.

"By doing that, you fill the lungs with air, and that air then pushes or displaces the heart away from the upper surface of the chest," Dr. Dhople explains.  "And, by definition, you're going to have more space between the heart and the chest."

It took Christa Smith some time to learn the breathing technique known as a deep inspiration breath hold.

"The nurses were extremely helpful in coaching me through the process," Smith says.  "Sometimes, I would not take in enough breaths, so I would have to stop and then take in a deeper breath.  I learned to just really close my eyes and just listen to my body, and, every time, I could pretty much hit it fairly quick."

Dr. Dhople says patients often need some coaching and time to get used to the deep breathing.

"But, it's worth it, because, long term, the amount of radiation that their heart is exposed to is dramatically less," he says.

The radiation oncology team is also using and optical sensor system, originally used to position radiation patients correctly,  to monitor their breathing during the treatments.

"This optical sensor monitoring system is basically 10,000 data points over their surface," Dr. Dhople says. "Rather than just coaching a patient to, 'Hey, try to take a deep breath and hold it,'we're actually monitoring it in real time."

Christa Smith, who is now finished with her radiation treatment and will be on a hormone blocker for the next 5 years, says she would have undergone radiation, no matter what.

She says it helped her beat breast cancer.

"But, I am grateful for the technique," Smith says.  "I had no idea that that technique would help me years down the road."

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