Abstract: Breast-conserving surgery with postoperative whole-breast irradiation(WBI) has become one of the standard treatments for early breast cancer.However, traditional WBI has a large radiation field and lengthy course of treatment.Accelerated partial-breast irradiation(APBI) has been recognized as an alternative treatment to WBI.Three main techniques constitute APBI: intraoperative radiation therapy, external radiation therapy, and brachytherapy.Intraoperative radiation therapy involves the application of therapeutic levels of radiation during surgery.This technique allows for the exact delivery of radiation beams to the tumor bed; strict precision is observed for equipment in this technique.External radiation therapy is performed by radiotherapists and physicists.This technique is easy to implement.Furthermore, the target dose distribution can be achieved because of the implementation of a treatment planning system.Brachytherapy includes multi-catheter interstitial brachytherapy and mammosite therapy.Presently, mammosite therapy is widely used because of its facile procedure.However, clinical follow-up data are limited because of the short duration of APBI therapy.The selection of appropriate patients and optimal dosimetric distribution is needed before APBI application to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence.