Belinda Smith figured she was destined to get breast cancer; her mother had it, and both of her grandmothers. Her father died of cancer too.

"So for me it was never a question of what if? It was always a question of when?" Belinda said.

But unlike her mother, she received a treatment that allowed her to avoid both a mastectomy and radiation to her entire breast.

Belinda said, "Years ago I went thru the whole radical mastectomy walk with my mother and saw what she went thru and I didn't want to do that and I had an option."

Belinda had a lumpectomy. The tumor and a small amount of the surrounding tissue were removed, and a tiny balloon catheter was temporarily implanted in her breast. Then, rather than 6 to 8 weeks of radiation, Dr. David Diamond treated her twice a day for five days with Mammosite targeted radiation.

Dr. Diamond said, "What we are doing is treating where the tumor had sat in the breast and a small margin around it. So we are treating a small area of the breast and giving very little radiation to the rest of the breast."

That makes it less likely the radiation itself will trigger more cancer in the future.

"When treatment is done, the balloon is deflated, the catheter removed and the patient goes home, no sutures no nothing", said Dr. Diamond.

Best of all, a national study shows that of 45 patients who underwent the Mammosite treatment, not one had her breast cancer return.

Belinda said, "There's hope you don't have to lose your breast you don't have to come out with major scarring. You don't have to worry about in five years a reoccurrence. That's huge!"

Belinda received her treatment at the Winter Park Radiation Oncology Center which is part of Florida hospital. You can read her story in the October issue of Family Circle magazine during Beast Cancer Awareness Month. And if you want to learn more about Mammosite targeted radiation therapy, and a treatment center nearest you, just click on the Weblinks section right here on WFTV.com