SurRad™
We are the first group of Americans to see a decrease in mortality from breast cancer. However, there are still more than 40,000 women who die of breast cancer in the United States. We can do better.
Technology must be utilized to improve care by making the journey through care faster, gentler, kinder, more effective, more efficient and less costly than we have now.
We still have no absolute prevention for breast cancer development and monoclonal antibody treatments for most breast cancers are still a distant dream. The entire secret to prevent death from breast cancer is early detection and diagnosis. Digital mammography, MRI, advanced ultrasound imaging and marked increase in awareness of this danger faced by one out of every seven women are the tools we use to lead to early detection and diagnosis.
For those affected by breast cancer we can now offer world class treatment. SurRad™ treatment—the combination of surgery and radiation therapy in one afternoon.
Most women who develop breast cancer will be able to come to the operating room and have their breast cancer removed and a local lymph node sampled and have intraoperative external beam radiation therapy (IOERT) to the one inch of breast tissue surrounding where the breast cancer had been removed from as the radiation therapy that is needed in two minutes for the total dose. They will then have proper breast repair (skin not radiated, hence not damaged by radiation therapy), and be discharged the same day or the next morning. This applies to 40 to 50% of newly diagnosed breast cancers and will be all the surgery and radiation therapy (SurRad™) they will need, therefore, it can be completed in less than one day. Others will be given a boost dose of IOERT to the area of the breast mentioned above, then have cosmetic repair (oncoplastic reconstruction) and 14 or 16 whole breast radiation therapy treatments rather than 30 to 35 radiation therapy treatments after surgery.
The data available now shows the treatment described above (SurRad™) is better than what we are doing now, as it is faster, more accurate, less costly and less traumatic to the woman and her breast and results in fewer recurrences of cancer in the affected breast. The data implies a reduction in death rate from recurrent cancer in the segment of the breast originally affected by offering lower recurrence in that breast.
In other cases where cancer is a bit more extensive in the breast, we can offer a woman “nipple areolar sparing mastectomy” (NASM) with immediate radiation therapy to the nipple and areola (IOERT) and immediate reconstruction by the plastic surgeon. When she awakens the next day and looks at her breast at first dressing change, she sees what appears to be her own breast, including the the nipple areolar complex—heart and sole of the breast—we can say that this is the next evolution in breast cancer care.