What is breast cancer surgery and what does it consist of?
Breast cancer surgery, until relatively recently, consisted of removing the breast. Dr. Sierra Garcia was the first Spanish surgeon to operate on breast cancer without the need to amputate the breast.
Current breast cancer surgery, caught in time, is performed in the operating room in a day hospital without the need for hospitalization. The tumor and lymph nodes are removed, saving the patient’s life, and the breast is left as it was without the need for reconstruction or other much more traumatic surgical techniques.
What are the latest advances in this surgery?
With the use of radioactive isotopes, the tumor and margins are removed (ROLL). The sentinel lymph node is removed, which in initial cases is usually negative, so we avoid having to remove the rest of the nodes.
All this, using such an avant-garde technique and such recent scientific methods, which allows us to say that the breast cancer operation is of a mild nature, with hardly any trauma and that it does not require hospitalization.
It is necessary that the hands of the operating surgeon have sufficient experience and knowledge of the latest advances in nuclear medicine applied to surgery.
What are the benefits?
This way of operating will avoid amputations of the breast, in most cases, and very traumatic operations; which are usually multiple, since one day the intervention is performed, another day the reconstruction is performed and another day prostheses are placed.
With this technique, on the contrary, the patient heals and the breast remains intact, all in the same day. It has a great influence on the psychological impact of the woman, since she knows that she will be in expert hands and that the operation will be moderate.
What is the postoperative period like?
The postoperative period is carried out personally by Dr. Sierra Garcia from the Breast Unit. It consists of a follow-up of the patient. After seven days the stitches will be removed and the patient will be discharged.
Subsequently, depending on the type of tumor removed and its characteristics, the patient will go to radiation oncology or medical oncology for complementary treatment.
Every year, once or twice, the patient will have to go for consultation in order to check the operated breast and the non-operated breast for revision.