Recent results from the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) trial of additional irradiation in patients with breast cancer, show that after breast-conserving surgery and radiotherapy (50 Gy) of the whole breast, an additional dose of 16 Gy on the tumour bed significantly reduces the local recurrence rate from 7.3% to 4.3%. A relative reduction was seen in all age groups but was most significant in patients aged 40 years and below (19.5% versus 10.2%). In women aged 60 years and over, the local recurrence rate after radiotherapy of 50 Gy (without the additional radiation dose) is already very low (4.0%). Therefore it is questionable whether an additional dose of 16 Gy (reducing the recurrence rate to 2.5%) is still justified as a standard treatment in this age group.