Blog Archive
Breast Cancer Care During A Pandemic: The Right Time for CryoablationBy Dennis R. Holmes, M.D., FACS The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a tremendous burden on the healthcare system, resulting in the postponement of elective surgical procedures to preserve limited hospital resources and minimize viral transmission. The American College of Surgeons,...
Managing Your Breast Health During a Pandemic By Dennis R. Holmes, M.D., FACS The world is now abuzz with news about Coronavirus (COVID-19), the viral disease that has taken the world by storm. California is on lockdown; corporations big and small are keeping employees at home; sport institutions like...
This month’s newsletter draws attention to a recent JAMA Oncology editorial, De-escalating Breast Cancer Surgery—Where is the Tipping Point (Dec 12, 2019), in which respected surgeons, Monica Morrow and Eric Winer, discussed the pros but mostly the cons of de-escalating breast cancer surgery, in reference to ongoing clinical trials to reduce the burden of breast cancer...
This letter to the editor is offered in response to a November 2019, Desert Sun article regarding a Palm Springs, CA surgeon who was placed on probation by the California Medical Board related to offering cryoablation or “tumor freezing” to women seeking an alternative to surgery for early stage breast...
PRINT ME Evaluation and Management of Breast Pain Breast pain or mastalgia (“mas-stal-ja”) is one of the most commonly reported symptoms in women presenting with breast complaints. In a 2014 survey of the general population of nearly 1700 women, 52% reported regular episodes of breast pain and 17% rated...
PRINT ME One of the most commonly asked questions I have heard from patients in recent weeks is “What do you think of the recent reports about breast implant safety?” The question has been prompted by recent news coverage of a major publication that analyzed, in patients with breast implants,...
PRINT ME What Are Risk Factors? Risk factors are physical, lifestyle, or historical factors that increase the likelihood of developing cancer. Who Are Your Patient’s Breast Cancer Risk Factors? Most women who get breast cancer have no known risk factors, aside from being of the female sex....
PRINT ME What Are Risk Factors? Risk factors are physical, lifestyle, or historical factors that increase the likelihood of developing breast cancer. What Are Your Breast Cancer Risk Factors? Most women who get breast cancer have no known risk factors, aside from being of the female sex. However, a...
PRINT ME What is breast density and why is it important? Breast density refers to the relative proportion of the three main contents of the breast: 1) milk-producing glandular tissue and ducts, 2) stroma—the internal scaffolding of the breast that holds everything in place, and 3) fat tissue which serves...
PRINT ME There’s a movement afoot in America. From Maine to Florida, Texas, Oregon, and many states in between, the "Are You Dense?" nationwide campaign led by the breast cancer advocacy movement is making efforts to enact laws that ensure women receive proper education regarding the significance of breast density and its...
PRINT ME There’s a movement afoot in America. From Maine to Florida, Texas, Oregon, and many states in between, the "Are You Dense?" nationwide campaign led by the breast cancer advocacy movement is making efforts to enact laws that ensure women receive proper education regarding the significance of breast density and its...
Mastectomy study confirms 'Jolie effect' on breast cancer prevention http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/83148364-132.html Angelina Jolie bravely revealed she removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, nearly two years after a double mastectomy. The Times' Christy Khoshaba has the details./p> HealthDay Actress Angelina Jolie's decision...
"Actress Angelina Jolie's decision to undergo breast removal to reduce her risk of breast cancer has led other women to do so, a new study shows." Continue reading on the Chicago Tribune.
The goal of breast cancer surgery is to remove the cancer surrounded by a rim of normal tissue. The main challenge of breast cancer surgery is that some parts of the cancer might not be detectable during surgery using standard procedures. About 30% of women in the U.S. require multiple...
1. Stay Calm It’s completely understandable to feel like your cancer diagnosis is a crisis that requires an urgent solution. “Get the cancer out of me quickly,” is a common request. However, you should resist the urge to treat cancer as an “emergency”. Having the cancer removed quickly may...
There’s a movement afoot in America. From Maine to Florida, Texas, Oregon, and many states in between, the ‘Are You Dense?’ nationwide campaign led by the breast cancer advocacy movement is making efforts to enact laws that ensure women receive proper education regarding the significance of breast density, and its...
Talking to women about their breast cancer risk is among the most gratifying of privileges I have as a breast surgeon and breast cancer advocate. An informal survey of thousands of women I’ve counseled over the years places most women into one of four groups when it comes to breast...
1. The study’s leader said that we’ve all been “overstating the value” of mammography. What’s your response to this? Do you agree? I agree that we have overstated the value of screening mammography to some degree. This is partly due to the fact that chemotherapy is now more effective at...
When must people think of early signs and symptoms of breast cancer, breast lumps and nipple discharge often come to mind. However, there are several subtle signs and symptoms of breast cancer that should be considered: a thickened area of the breast, skin or nipple retraction, skin redness and swelling,...
I recently learned of an unfortunate situation in which a woman was given a diagnosis of cancer by two different hospitals, only to find out after receiving 20 rounds of chemotherapy that her breast condition was non-cancerous. From a needle biopsy, she had been originally diagnosed with metaplastic breast cancer,...
The August 20, 2015, publication of “Breast Cancer Mortality After A Diagnosis of Ductal Carcinoma In Situ” (JAMA Oncol 2015) by Steve Narod and colleagues has spurred considerable discussion and debate regarding the natural history and optimal treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or non-invasive breast cancer, a condition...
Among the most gratifying experiences that I have as a breast cancer surgeon is when I inform a healthy woman that she has tested “positive” for a breast cancer gene mutation. I suspect that you have re-read the title of the blog and opening sentence a couple of time to...