Saturday, November 01, 2008

The Daily Mail's "keyhole" breast cancer surgery technique not so new (or useful?)

Ok, I bit on the headline of some new "revolutionary" (their words) breast cancer technique written up on the UK's Daily Mail..... the "keyhole technique"


The article describes an endoscopic (lighted camera) assisted mastectomy done to preserve the nipple during surgery in breast cancer cases. As nipple sparing mastectomies have been done by plastic surgeons (and more recently breast oncologists) for about 50 years, officially color me skeptical that this technique adds anything other then complexity and or time.


For instance, in the last 2 weeks I did 2 nipple sparing mastectomies thru 3 cm incisions (one for male breast enlargement - gynecomastia, and one prophylactic for a woman with a history of breast cancer) sans endoscope in well under 45 minutes


Rob

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