( More than half of breast cancer patient...)Second opinion yields treatment changes for half of patients

A multidisciplinary tumor board includes a network of specialists from different disciplines devoted to treating breast cancer, including surgery, radiation oncology, medical oncology, radiology and pathology.

Researchers looked at the records of 149 consecutive patients referred to the U-M Cancer Center’s multidisciplinary breast tumor board for a second opinion. The patients had already been diagnosed with breast cancer after having undergone initial evaluation, breast imaging and biopsy, and they already had a treatment recommendation from another hospital or care provider.

Overall, 52 percent of the patients evaluated had one or more changes in their recommendations for surgery. The changes were a result of breast imaging specialists reading a mammogram differently or breast pathologists interpreting biopsy results differently. In some cases, the initial recommendation was changed after the case was reviewed by medical oncologists and radiation oncologists prior to surgery.

Results of the study appear in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.

“A multidisciplinary tumor board that involves the collaborative effort of multiple medical specialties allows expert opinion and recommendations based on the most recent research findings. Meanwhile, the patients come to only one setting, with no need to visit multiple specialists individually,?says study author Michael Sabel, M.D., assistant professor of surgery at the U-M Medical School and part of the U-M Cancer Centers multidisciplinary breast tumor board.

The study authors found the initial treatment recommendations often did not consider new surgery techniques, such as delivering chemotherapy before surgery to make b
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Source:University of Michigan Health System