PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To describe the experience of viewing oneself in a mirror following a mastectomy. RESEARCH APPROACH Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology. SETTING Three hospitals in a nonprofit healthcare system in the southwestern United States. PARTICIPANTS Purposive sample of 12 women 3-12 months postmastectomy. METHODOLOGIC APPROACH Structural analysis and phenomenologic interpreta...

Conservative Breast Surgery Stage I and Stage II breast cancers are early cancers that are not fixed to the skin or muscle. If lymph nodes are involved, they are not fixed to each other or to underlying structures. Modified radical mastectomy continues to be appropriate for some patients, but breast conservation therapy is now regarded as the optimal treatment for most. Six prospective randomiz...

Following prophylactic mastectomy (aka bilateral risk-reducing mastectomy), the incidence of breast carcinoma is presumably not more than 2% [1]. The studies by Pennisi and Capozzi [2] and Woods [3], among several others, reported that a few out of more than 1,000 patients in their studies (prophylactic subcutaneous mastectomy) developed breast cancer after years of follow-up (incidence rate 0....

BACKGROUND A role for radiotherapy after mastectomy for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is unclear. Using a prospective audit of DCIS detected through the NHS Breast Screening Programme we sought to determine a rationale for the use of post mastectomy radiotherapy for DCIS. METHODS Over a nine year period, from 9972 patients with screen-detected DCIS and complete surgical, pathology, radiothe...

Considerable debate exists about the optimal treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Using electronic data sources, we examined first course treatment patterns among women aged 18 years and older diagnosed with DCIS between 2000-2010 from six Kaiser Permanente (KP) regions. We calculated the proportion of patients receiving breast conserving surgery (BCS), BCS plus radiation therapy, unil...

: Autologous breast reconstruction has consistently demonstrated excellent patient satisfaction, ideal aesthetic results, and a low risk of complications. With the increasing incidence cancer diagnoses higher rates, surgeons encounter broader spectrum patients. Obese patients undergoing are more likely to experience surgical complication. While free tissue transfer carries donor site complicati...

BACKGROUND Modified radical mastectomy remains the standard therapeutic surgical operation for breast cancer in most parts of the world. This retrospective study reviews mastectomy for management of breast cancer in a surgical oncology division over a ten year period. METHODS We reviewed the case records of consecutive breast cancer patients who underwent mastectomy at the Surgical Oncology D...

OBJECTIVE Although breast conservation is therapeutically equivalent to mastectomy for most patients with early-stage breast cancer, an increasing number of patients are pursuing mastectomy, which may be followed by breast reconstruction. We sought to evaluate long-term quality of life and cosmetic outcomes after different locoregional management approaches, as perceived by patients themselves....

BACKGROUND Implant-based breast reconstruction after mastectomy has recently been reported to be the preferred type of surgery among breast-specific surgeons and plastic surgeons. AIMS To explore the significant clinicopathological factors associated with long-term outcome related to local recurrences of the nipple among patients who underwent immediate breast reconstruction with tissue expan...

background: surgery is usually the first treatment for breast cancer which is followed by some complications such as chronic pain. post mastectomy pain syndrome (pmps) is a common complication among breast cancer survivors and is considered as a chronic neuropathic pain in the side of surgery which persists more than three months. the exact mechanisms and related risk factors of the chronic pai...