Alkaline Water in Reducing Skin Toxicity in Women With Breast Cancer Undergoing Radiation Therapy

Inclusion Criteria:

Patients must have histologically or cytologically confirmed stage 0-IV breast cancer and have a treatment plan consisting of 62Gy (31 fractions) of total breast radiation therapy to be eligible; patients are eligible if they have received any number of prior chemotherapies; patients having received chemotherapy prior to radiation will be stratified among randomization groups during the second phase of this study
Life expectancy of greater than 3 months
Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status =< 2 (Karnofsky >= 60%)
Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document

Exclusion Criteria:

Patients receiving any investigational chemotherapeutic agents during planned radiation or any prior breast or chest wall radiation treatments are excluded
Patients receiving concurrent chemotherapy are excluded because of an increased relative risk of skin toxicity; patients taking daily proton-pump inhibitor or H2-blocker antacid medications are excluded because of predicted interference of alkaline water consumption and stomach pH; herceptin for the purposes of this clinical trial would be considered a chemotherapy, and as such, patients receiving herceptin chemotherapy during radiation would not be eligible for participation in this protocol
Patients with a history of any prior malignancy except non-melanoma skin cancer or carcinoma in-situ of the cervix not in remission for twelve months are excluded; patients with known brain metastases are excluded from this clinical trial because of their overall poor prognosis
Pregnancy excludes female patients from this study because radiation is potentially teratogenic and abortifacient; screening beta-hcg levels and clinically-indicated diagnostic tests will be used to determine eligibility