Health News
If you are facing a breast cancer diagnosis, you want confidence that your treatment plan is the best one possible. To ensure that each breast cancer patient of the Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center does, in fact, receive the best care, Northwest Hospital hosts monthly multi-disciplinary conferences that are connected to Sinai Hospital via teleconference.
These conferences are called ?multi-disciplinary? because they consist of a meeting of doctors from different cancer specialties, including medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, pathologists and endocrinologists. A genetic counselor, who can give insight into the chances a patient?s breast cancer will return after treatment, also attends.
Dawn Leonard, M.D., breast surgeon and medical director of the Samuelson Breast Care Center, leads the conferences. After she presents the details of a patient?s case, center radiologist Liba Goldblum, M.D., explains images of the patient?s tumors taken from mammography and breast MRI. Next, a pathologist goes over slides that show the molecular structure of the patient?s biopsied tumor. Finally, the specialists are invited to apply their specific areas of expertise to the case, and a dialogue about treatment ensues.
As each patient?s cancer diagnosis is as unique as that person is, the format is an effective way to make sure that no angle of a patient?s medical condition is left unexplored. Essentially, the monthly conferences give patients the benefit of ?being seen? by a dozen or more physicians at the same time.
Through it all, patient privacy is protected. Only pertinent details are shared, such as age, ethnic background, medical history (especially history of breast cancer risk factors) and family history of breast or ovarian cancer. These are all factors that play into a patient?s breast cancer risk.
For patients who have a high chance of breast cancer returning after treatment, doctors may advise them to undergo a mastectomy ? even if their breast cancer is at stage 0, the earliest it can be detected ? to protect them from a future breast cancer diagnosis. The group of physicians will also make recommendations as to whether a patient should receive chemotherapy, drug therapy or radiation ? and in what order. Finally, if a patient needs one or both breasts removed, the doctors will also discuss when and how breast reconstruction should be approached. Reconstruction is always viewed as part of the treatment for breast cancer so that, if she so desires, a woman can have back her original image as much as possible.
Finally, some of the cases handled at the conferences are particularly difficult, such as when the group considers a patient who has a stage 4, triple negative cancer diagnosis, which has a low survival rate. Given that some cancer treatments can be hard on some patients, how aggressively should such a cancer be treated? Is the treatment worse than the disease?
Sometimes the answers are best determined through a conversation between doctor and patient. However, the overall consensus of the cancer doctors is that the patient must always be given hope. Optimism is a powerful force in impacting a patient?s outcome, and, given hope, even some of the sickest patients move onto the road to recovery.
-Holly Hosler
- Surgeon Responds To Mammogram Controversy
by Holly Hosler By now, you have likely heard about the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force?s controversial new recommendation on Monday that most women should refrain from getting mammograms in their 40s. Their rationale is that most breast cancer...
- Breast Surgeon Talks About Therapies; New Trends
by Holly Hosler Although breast cancer incidence is declining in the U.S. overall, it is actually increasing among residents of Baltimore city and Baltimore County, says Dawn Leonard, M.D., presenter at last week?s Alvin & Lois Lapidus Cancer Institute...
- Breast Cancer Screening Offered
If you're a woman, mark your calender for Wednesday, October 7. That's when we're inviting you to join us for an evening of frank and honest discussion about women?s breast health hosted by WJZ-TV 13 news anchor Mary Bubala. Clinical breast...
- Genes And Breast Cancer
By Deb Kirkland, RN, BSN, MPH Nurse Navigator, Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Center at Northwest Hospital Cancer is caused by mutations in our genes. Sometimes our body can repair these changes, but other times it cannot. About 90 percent of cancers...
- Cases Of Breast Cancer Among Younger Women Rising
By Deb Kirkland, RN, BSN, MPH Nurse Navigator, Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Center at Northwest Hospital This year over 200,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and of those 11,000 will be under the age of 40. This...
Health News
Multi-disciplinary Care at Northwest Hospital
If you are facing a breast cancer diagnosis, you want confidence that your treatment plan is the best one possible. To ensure that each breast cancer patient of the Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center does, in fact, receive the best care, Northwest Hospital hosts monthly multi-disciplinary conferences that are connected to Sinai Hospital via teleconference.These conferences are called ?multi-disciplinary? because they consist of a meeting of doctors from different cancer specialties, including medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, pathologists and endocrinologists. A genetic counselor, who can give insight into the chances a patient?s breast cancer will return after treatment, also attends.
Dawn Leonard, M.D., breast surgeon and medical director of the Samuelson Breast Care Center, leads the conferences. After she presents the details of a patient?s case, center radiologist Liba Goldblum, M.D., explains images of the patient?s tumors taken from mammography and breast MRI. Next, a pathologist goes over slides that show the molecular structure of the patient?s biopsied tumor. Finally, the specialists are invited to apply their specific areas of expertise to the case, and a dialogue about treatment ensues.
As each patient?s cancer diagnosis is as unique as that person is, the format is an effective way to make sure that no angle of a patient?s medical condition is left unexplored. Essentially, the monthly conferences give patients the benefit of ?being seen? by a dozen or more physicians at the same time.
Through it all, patient privacy is protected. Only pertinent details are shared, such as age, ethnic background, medical history (especially history of breast cancer risk factors) and family history of breast or ovarian cancer. These are all factors that play into a patient?s breast cancer risk.
For patients who have a high chance of breast cancer returning after treatment, doctors may advise them to undergo a mastectomy ? even if their breast cancer is at stage 0, the earliest it can be detected ? to protect them from a future breast cancer diagnosis. The group of physicians will also make recommendations as to whether a patient should receive chemotherapy, drug therapy or radiation ? and in what order. Finally, if a patient needs one or both breasts removed, the doctors will also discuss when and how breast reconstruction should be approached. Reconstruction is always viewed as part of the treatment for breast cancer so that, if she so desires, a woman can have back her original image as much as possible.
Finally, some of the cases handled at the conferences are particularly difficult, such as when the group considers a patient who has a stage 4, triple negative cancer diagnosis, which has a low survival rate. Given that some cancer treatments can be hard on some patients, how aggressively should such a cancer be treated? Is the treatment worse than the disease?
Sometimes the answers are best determined through a conversation between doctor and patient. However, the overall consensus of the cancer doctors is that the patient must always be given hope. Optimism is a powerful force in impacting a patient?s outcome, and, given hope, even some of the sickest patients move onto the road to recovery.
-Holly Hosler
- Surgeon Responds To Mammogram Controversy
by Holly Hosler By now, you have likely heard about the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force?s controversial new recommendation on Monday that most women should refrain from getting mammograms in their 40s. Their rationale is that most breast cancer...
- Breast Surgeon Talks About Therapies; New Trends
by Holly Hosler Although breast cancer incidence is declining in the U.S. overall, it is actually increasing among residents of Baltimore city and Baltimore County, says Dawn Leonard, M.D., presenter at last week?s Alvin & Lois Lapidus Cancer Institute...
- Breast Cancer Screening Offered
If you're a woman, mark your calender for Wednesday, October 7. That's when we're inviting you to join us for an evening of frank and honest discussion about women?s breast health hosted by WJZ-TV 13 news anchor Mary Bubala. Clinical breast...
- Genes And Breast Cancer
By Deb Kirkland, RN, BSN, MPH Nurse Navigator, Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Center at Northwest Hospital Cancer is caused by mutations in our genes. Sometimes our body can repair these changes, but other times it cannot. About 90 percent of cancers...
- Cases Of Breast Cancer Among Younger Women Rising
By Deb Kirkland, RN, BSN, MPH Nurse Navigator, Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Center at Northwest Hospital This year over 200,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and of those 11,000 will be under the age of 40. This...