One of the top U.S. breast reconstruction teams has developed a new app that provides easy access to breast surgery and breast reconstruction options, https://breastadvocateapp.com/?utm_content=buffer210d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
One of every two women with early-stage breast cancer now consider removing both breasts, even though they only have cancer in one, according to a new University of Michigan study. This option has soared upwards from 3.9% in 2002, it said.
Force17
Here are 4 key messages of #FORCE17, which held its 10th anniversary conference last week on hereditary cancer issues.
Summarized by Patricia Anstett, author, “Breast Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction: What’s Right for You,” from presentations at the conference of Facing Our Risk Empowered (FORCE).
After years of women returning for repeat lumpectomies because the margins of their tumor contain cancer, new guidelines are reducing these re-operations. Here’s a new study on the issue: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2630063?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=content-shareicons&utm_content=article_engagement&utm_medium=social&utm_term=060517#.WTVwtIWiO2E.facebook
Detroit breast cancer survivor, Dr. Linda Johnson, is shown here with the “On-Q Pain Relief System, which she used to reduce post-operative pain after breast reconstruction. It is a non-narcotic system. “This is a little pump about the size of a small can of soup that contains pain reliever that comes into your system automatically for a few days after surgery,’’ says Johnson, a retired school principal. “The pump goes to a tiny plastic tube that the surgeon installs in your chest. This little dickens really worked!! All I had to do was to carry it around in the little nylon bag shown in the picture. By day I used it like a shoulder bag and at night I just kept it beside me in the bed. The doc will take out the 4 or 5 inches of tubing that went into my body when I go for my check up next week. Easy breezy, it gives a constant stream of pain relief, and doesn’t involve pills.” For details: http://www.myon-q.com/why-on-q.aspx
Where to place breast implants — under the chest muscle or over it — remains more a plastic surgeon’s choice. It’s an important discussion, in particular, for thinner, very active women, who sometimes complain that implants move inappropriately when they exercise. In plastic surgery, this is an issue known as “distortion.”
Here one doctor provides some clarity on why he and many other doctors prefer to place implants under the chest muscle. https://niume.com/post/247372https://niume.com/post/247372.
For more discussion on implant placement, see our book’s breast implant chapter. It discusses types of implants; problems; placement concerns and other issues.
Here’s how Terri Coutee, founder of a nonprofit promoting autologous breast reconstruction, describes her recovery from fat-grafting, a second operation following her autologous breast reconstruction last year. http://diepcjourney.com/2016/08/19/anesthesia-recovery-fat-grafting-breast-reconstruction/
One of the realities about breast reconstruction that is rarely mentioned is the loss of sensation in the breast. Here, the NYT in a front-page story, reports one of the key issues that launched reporting for “Breast Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction: What’s Right for You.”
Women who need radiation are more satisfied and have fewer complications with autologous breast reconstruction, compared to implants, a major University of Michigan study has found.
Former Michigan public health director Vern Anthony continues to educate, this time with information that helps more understand that a cancer recurrence, even two as she has had, is not a death sentence. Her most important advice: Live your life fully. And she has tips about what NOT to say to someone with cancer.
