Many Breast Cancer Patients Are Not Receiving Most Advanced Breast Conserving Surgical Techniques, New S...( Skin Sparing Approaches Offer Effec...),Health

Skin Sparing Approaches Offer Effective Cancer Treatment and Restore the

Most Natural Looking Breast

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- New surgical techniques have dramatically improved the aesthetic results of mastectomy without sacrificing outcomes. Properly placed incisions and skin-sparing, or breast skin conserving, surgical approaches provide women undergoing biopsy and surgical treatment for breast cancer with the best option for appropriate cancer eradication while still permitting reconstruction of a more natural looking breast. Yet, according to a recent study, one third of California board-certified breast surgeons surveyed still regularly use the archaic practice of cutting across the whole breast when performing a mastectomy, resulting in unnecessarily disfiguring scars.

A skin-sparing operation removes cancerous breast tissue by using the same minimal and judiciously placed incisions used by plastic surgeons for elective breast surgery. The most common approach is to use a simple, small, circular incision around the edge of the nipple area. The surgeon leaves all or most of the overlying breast skin, preserving the natural skin envelope that can be filled with an implant or with a patient's own fat tissue from another part of the body. This skin-sparing technique is appropriate for women whose breast cancer does not invade the skin of the breast.

In the study, recently presented at the American College of Surgeons meeting and published in the October 2008 issue of The American Surgeon, the researchers surveyed California board-certified general surgeons who perform breast cancer surgery. The majority of the 414 surgeons who responded to the study agreed that a skin-sparing mastectomy does not result in a higher risk of cancer recurrence, and three-quarters recognized that the cosmetic results of a skin-sparing operation were better than a standard mastectomy. Despite this, fewer than two-thirds sai
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