Word: breast
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Medical science is a long way from keeping all these women whole, but reports at two medical meetings last week indicate progress in two important aspects of breast cancer: controlling recurrence and providing an alternative to radical mastectomy in certain cases. Meanwhile doctors are also working on ways to reduce the psychic misery of those who must undergo full-scale surgery...
...body's own defense mechanisms to protect itself against cancer. Dr. Edmund Klein of Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., who has already had some success treating skin cancer, tried a variation of the treatment on five women. The patients had all undergone breast surgery already and were suffering recurrences of cancer. Klein injected a serum containing tuberculin-a substance that rouses the body to counterattack-directly into the women's cancerous lesions. Then, as the cancers showed signs of healing, he switched from the painful shots to regular applications of a tuberculin skin cream. Most people...
More controversial was the report of Dr. M. Vera Peters, of Toronto's Princess Margaret Rose Hospital, on simpler surgery for early breast cancer. Dr. Peters told a meeting at the Indiana School of Medicine that doctors should attempt the most conservative procedures possible "in order to preserve the patient's morale." Thus, for certain of her patients in whom early diagnosis has been made, she favors "lumpectomy," the removal of the cancer alone rather than the entire breast. She claims that the operation, which is followed by radiation therapy, offers selected patients essentially the same survival rate...
Many surgeons still question Dr. Peters' procedure and take issue with women's magazine articles that advocate it as an alternative. "Deciding about treatments for breast cancer shouldn't be like choosing a brand of toothpaste," says Dr. Guy Robbins, acting chief of the breast service at New York's Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. Dr. Robbins cautions that lumpectomy may fail to locate or remove all the cells and he maintains that only radical mastectomy offers the physician and the patient a semblance of certainty that all malignancy has been removed. He also...
Cosmetic Job. But Robbins acknowledges that male doctors are often insensitive to women's psychological problems. He and his colleagues support efforts to ease the shock of breast removal. Many doctors are spending more time acquainting their patients with the necessity for radical surgery. Reach for Recovery, a program run by former mastectomy patients, is helping women through the convalescent period with exercise drills and counseling...