The technique, known as IORT, has numerous benefits, surgeons say, but it generates less money for hospitals and radiation oncologists.It’s not uncommon for breast cancer patients in the rural South to travel hundreds of miles to reach the medical practice run by Dr. Phillip Ley, a cancer surgeon in Jackson, Mississippi. For those who are good candidates, Ley recommends a therapy that delivers a single, targeted radiation dose to a patient’s breast tissue immediately after surgery to remove a tumor. Known as intraoperative radiation therapy, or IORT, it costs patients less in both time and money than traditional radiation treatments,...