Voice-over:
Doctors diagnose thousands of women with breast cancer every year. And many opt for the breast-conserving surgery known as lumpectomy. But tests to be sure the tissue adjacent to a tumor is cancer-free require hours to complete, sometimes meaning patients have to return to the operating room for a second or even third surgery.
Voice-over:
Now researchers at the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center say women who undergo a procedure to rapidly locate the edges of a tumor before they head to the recovery room stand an excellent chance of saving time, money and possibly their breasts. The U-F research looked at the use of a fast diagnostic procedure called “frozen section analysis” that lessens the time required to confirm the tissue around a tumor is clear, allowing doctors to examine lumpectomy margins while the patient is still on the operating table. In contrast, the standard diagnostic method takes hours to perform. That means some women face additional surgery to remove cancerous cells that were missed the first time.
Dr. Juan Cendan / UF surgeon:
“There’s a lot of emotional worry to a patient in the waiting period after a surgery to know if margins were or were not tumor bearing, and frozen section allows us to give those patients feedback more reliably so that they don’t have to be concerned about a trip back to the operating room.”
Voice-over:
U-F researchers studied nearly a hundred women with noninvasive or early stages of invasive breast cancer and found that more than half were spared additional trips to the O-R because cancerous tissue was successfully removed during the surgery. But frozen section analysis did fail to detect cancerous margins in about one-fifth of the patients. For that reason, in most cases the new method should continue to be used in conjunction with the traditional approach.
Dr. Juan Cendan / UF surgeon:
“The up-side may also be that you may be able to preserve more breast and fewer women could have to have mastectomies, and our breast conservation rate was in the mid-80 percent range, which is very, very good.”
Voice-over:
At the University of Florida Health Science Center, I’m Mike Garrison
