KETTERING, Ohio -- The shattering moment came in mid May of this year. Amid the stress of moving into a new home, Myrna Nelson learned that she had breast cancer.

"I sobbed," she said. "I called both my kids and cried with them, then I called my friend who is a 12-year breast cancer survivor and cried with her. I had no breast cancer history in my family, and I was just devastated."

Then, the 65-year-old Kettering resident began thinking about her next move and resolved to beat the cancer. She had two out-of-town friends who were cancer surgeons and they gave her some advice. "Both of them said the same thing - talk to your surgeon about MammoSite," Nelson said.

MammoSite Catheter is a device comprised of a clear tube with a sphere attached to one end. It has been FDA approved since 2002, but it is really gaining acceptance in recent years. Use of this device has gone up 50 fold in the past three years at Kettering Medical Center.

MammoSite offers a five-day treatment course as opposed to a 37-day course with direct radiation, and it also offers patients far less skin irritation and fatigue.

When a patient receives a lumpectomy, the most vulnerable region for cancer recurrence is in the area adjacent to where the lump was removed, known as the margin. The MammoSite sphere is inserted into that cavity void and the tube portion is ported on the outside of the breast. This allows a radiation oncologist to insert a radioactive source that treats only the region closely associated with the area where the tumor was removed, just outside the surface of the MammoSite sphere.

"For me it was a no-brainer," Nelson said. "They don't radiate any part other than what needs to be radiated."

Myrna was a good candidate for MammoSite because she had an early stage one tumor that was not located close to the skin surface. She started her treatment course on June 16 and was finished at the end of that same week. Her doctors expect a full recovery.