A Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Scottsdale
Posts tagged Breast Reconstruction
UC system taking on breast cancer: the creation of the ATHENA Breast Network
02 years ago
Fight Breast Cancer
Scottsdale – University of California medical centers are putting their heads together in an effort to study breast cancer like it has never been studied before. All UC medical center are participating in an unprecedented statewide collaboration to improve care for breast cancer by designing and testing new research, technology and health care delivery systems. The program is called the ATHENA Breast Health Network, and will initially involve 150,000 women throughout California who will be screened for breast cancer and followed for decades through the five UC medical centers.
“ATHENA is a model of multi-institutional collaboration and demonstrates the enormous potential in shared systems,” said Dr. John D. Stobo and UC senior vice president for health sciences and services. “This is a great example demonstrating that the total of what can be accomplished by UC functioning as a system far exceeds the sum of contributions by the individual campuses. ATHENA represents an unprecedented opportunity to play a leadership role in driving critical changes in health care. The public nature of the UC institutions make them uniquely positioned to study the appropriateness and effectiveness of treatment. It also allows for the applied use of new scientific evidence, much of which has been developed in the UC medical centers, to truly change the delivery of care.”
The plan has a very ambitious goal – to generate a large amount of data that can be used later to improve breast cancer care! All women undergoing screening and treatment will be asked to contribute information about themselves, risk factors they have, health status, and other related lifestyle behaviors, such as diet, tobacco and drug use, environmental factors, gynecological history and family risk.
“The ATHENA Breast Health Network provides a first-time opportunity for the five UC cancer centers to leverage their collective research strengths in tackling important scientific and clinical questions in breast cancer,” said Dr. Dennis Carson the director of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center. This exciting news was reported through the UC San Diego News Report and the UCSD Moores Cancer Center.
After the information is gathered it will be used to help improve treatment but also to target prevention services. The UC system is particularly well-positioned for a project of ATHENA’s magnitude because the medical centers annually screen as many as 80,000 women, and diagnose 2,500 patients with breast cancer.The project is expected to generate a rich collection of data and knowledge that will shape breast cancer care in the way the renowned Framingham heart study changed the care of patients with heart disease.
While ambitious – this type of study has been needed for a long time. I believe that once the data is analyzed- the infromation will have the potential to change the face of breast cancer prevention and treatment.
Perforator flap breast reconstruction may offer more options for patients.
02 years ago
Fight Breast Cancer.
Scottsdale – An article in the September (2009) issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, suggests that a relatively new technique, using perforator flaps, can offer patients with difficult reconstructive scenarios better results after breast cancer treatment. The article includes an overall experience with almost 4000 breast flaps performed for breast reconstruction. The success rate was 99 percent. The researchers concluded that perforator flap breast reconstruction is an accepted surgical option for breast cancer patients electing to restore their body image after mastectomy.
A “perforator flap” is quite different from traditional tissue flaps used in plastic surgery. Previously, tissue flaps would depend on oxygen and nutrition derived via the blood vessels in muscles and fascias, called musculocutaneous or fasciocutaneous flaps. While use of these techniques is important, transfer of the tissue would inevitably removed the underlying muscle or fascia from the donor region for good. The perforator tissue flaps only use the blood vessels that penetrate muscle and fascia and supply oxygen and nutrition to the skin and fat tissue being harvested. Perforator flaps allow the reconstructive surgeon to provide tissue while preserving underlying muscular structures, such as the rectus muscles of the abdominal wall, seen with dissection of the Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator flap. The muscle can left intact, while the tissue for breast reconstruction, the skin and fat, is transferred to reconstruct the breast.
With the introduction of the deep inferior epigastric perforator flap, microsurgical techniques have evolved to support a 99 percent success rate for a variety of flaps with donor sites that include the abdomen, buttock, thigh, and trunk. With this experience, the authors are tackling more difficult cases and scenarios. They concluded that the current trends for the use of perforator flaps suggest an application of these techniques in patients previously felt to be unacceptable surgical candidates with a focus on safety, aesthetics, and increased sensitization. Moreover, recent experience highlights the use of perforator flaps as a proven solution for patients who have experienced failed breast implant-based reconstructions or those requiring irradiation in the treatment of breast carcinoma.
