The news hit Tracy Cantella like a load of bricks: She had BRCA 1, the gene infamous for greatly increasing a woman’s risks of breast and ovarian cancer. She had watched her paternal grandmother battle both, and eventually succumb to breast cancer. Recalling her grandmother’s ordeal and thinking of…
The UF Health Breast Center received reaccreditation this month from the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers, as well as commendations for best practices for quality initiatives and enrollment of patients to clinical trials.
A mastectomy is a surgical procedure that removes the breast to treat or prevent breast cancer. Women often choose breast reconstruction to help restore the look and feel of the breast after a mastectomy. Find out more with Dr. Bruce Mast, Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UF Health, on…
Dealing with breast cancer involves so much more than just eradicating disease. For many women, breast reconstruction is an important part of recovery from cancer. And for women with a genetic predisposition to cancer, today’s top-notch reconstruction options can make it easier to choose a preventative mastectomy. Learn more…
Q&A on mastectomies and breast reconstruction with UF’s top plastic surgeon Angelina Jolie’s recent announcement of her preventative double mastectomy and subsequent breast reconstruction has spurred much public discussion about genetic testing for the so-called “breast cancer genes,” options for women who have one of these genes or breast cancer…
Christiana Shaw, M.D., M.S., a UF assistant professor of surgery and a surgical oncologist, co-chaired the 2011 American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5k Walk, held in October. Shaw and Karen Daily, M.D., an assistant professor in UF’s division of hematology/oncology organized the walk and…
The University of Florida Breast Center at Shands at UF medical center received accreditation as a National Center of Excellence in Breast Cancer this month by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers. The three-year designation was the result of a rigorous, 18-month evaluation process and site visit.
This fall, the University of Florida Shands Multidisciplinary Breast Cancer Program will become the first health-care entity in Florida to offer Intrabeam treatments for breast cancer. “It’s a technology that’s been recently validated as an approach for drastically shortening the period of treatment for early stage breast cancer,” said Stephen…
Physicians treating breast cancer first look to lymph nodes in a patient’s armpit to see whether cancer is spreading elsewhere in the body — but they may not be evaluating the nodes in the most effective way.
