American Society of Breast Surgeons, 14th Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 2013

Melanie Walker recently attended the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Conference in Chicago and the pre meeting courses focusing on new techniques in oncoplastic surgery and high risk/genetic and familial breast cancer. The three day intensive meeting provided up to date information on the current surgical management of breast cancer.

A highlight of the conference was having the opportunity to listen to and meet three doyens of breast cancer surgery, Professors Veronesi, Silverstein and Giuliano. The three professors led a rare and historically important lecture series, looking at how the management of breast cancer has changed over the past 50 years – The Evolution of Loco- Regional Management of Breast Cancer.

Professor Armando Giuliano and Melanie Walker

Women with cancer in one breast who choose a prophylactic mastectomy of their remaining healthy breast may risk increased post operative complications, especially if they are obese or smoke, according to a new study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting. The study of more than 4,200 breast cancer patients entered in the American College of Surgeons National Surgery Quality Improvement Program database found that women making this choice suffered approximately twice as many post-surgical complications as women undergoing a single mastectomy.

The wound complication rate was 5.8% for bilateral and 2.9% for unilateral patients. While these risks did not vary with patient age, they significantly increased independently in women who were obese or who smoke.

Multiple recent studies have demonstrated that women with unilateral breast cancer are choosing contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) at an increasing rate, and this current study underlines the importance of discussing the potential increased complication rate of bilateral mastectomy when counselling women contemplating CPM, especially in those women who are obese or who smoke.