All patients should undergo a triple assessment (mammography, ultrasound and histopathology) and the results should be discussed in a multidisciplinary team meeting (comprising breast surgeons, medical and clinical oncologists, radiologists, histopathologists, etc.). These experts work collaboratively and within their scope of practice in order for the most appropriate decision to be made regarding the best possible treatment for the patient before selecting the patient for TARGIT.

The above criteria for patient selection are taken from the eligibility criteria for the TARGIT-A trial, but it should be noted that both the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) (Smith et al. 2009) and the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) (Polgár et al. 2010) have released guidelines (Table 17.2) for the selection of patients for accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) outside the context of a clinical trial. It is important to note that these guidelines are based upon all trials and methods of APBI, which are similar (but not identical) to TARGIT. They conclude that there appears to be a group of patients in whom the use of PBI could be deemed safe as the sole method of radiotherapy treatment but for some modalities there is limited recurrence and survival data.