PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL--In 2008 approximately 180,000 thousand women in the United States were diagnosed with breast cancer.
The majority of those women had the chance to choose between lumpectomy, where only a part of the affected breast is removed, and mastectomy, where all of the breast tissue and some nearby tissue are removed. It's a medical decision but it is also a very personal decision .. and it is critical that a woman get all the facts to help her decide which is the better choice for her.
Tina Jacobs works for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation in Florida. Tina learned a lot about cancer from her own first hand experience - she was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 40s. She had some difficult choices to make.
Tina Jacobs,survivor: "The surgeon told me that he felt that based on the size of the mass and where it was that I would be a good candidate for a lumpectomy."
Deciding whether to have a lumpectomy or mastectomy has gotten easier for many patients in the past two decades.
Dr. Jerome Spunberg, Radiation Oncologist: "These days most patients are able to have a lumpectomy rather than mastectomy because breast cancer's being detected at an earlier stage. It was discovered more than 15 or 20 years ago that most patients could be treated with just a conservative procedure, what we call conservative management which involves just removing the tumor itself and then sampling the lymph nodes. So patients with small tumors that are not very invasive that are less than a certain size, usually around 3 or 4 centimeters (or an inch and a half or so) are eligible to have this more limited procedure."
The factors that make a difference really come down to:
the size of the tumor, the presence and number of lymph nodes, the location of the tumor, whether there is involvement of the skin."
Dr. Spunberg: "Just because someone has a genetic risk doesn't mean you have to automatically go for a mastectomy."
It is a deeply personal decision which each woman has to make for herself but because of advances in detection more women now have the option of choosing breast conserving treatment.
Tina Jacobs: "I felt my decision for the lumpectomy was the right one."
