Breast Cancer Treatment at IEO Milan Italy

Breast Cancer Treatment at IEO, Milan, Italy

The IEO Breast Cancer Program is aimed at providing with a multidisciplinary method, excellence in diagnostics, clinical and surgical approaches, as well as clinically oriented research, to achieve the maximum effectiveness of the service to patients. It is based upon a concrete personal approach to women with breast cancer. The personalization allows to get a treatment with the utmost probability of effectiveness and a positive and constructive relationship between patients and their care givers, conditions in which fear and doubt can be replaced by greater knowledge and regained hope.

Breast Program

The treatment of breast cancer is based on surgery associated with radiation therapy and pharmacological treatment according to the specific situation. An element of excellence that characterizes the IEO Breast Program is the exact biological knowledge of each individual tumor before starting treatment. Breast Cancer Treatment Program consists of:

Surgery

The IEO breast surgery is the first in the world in terms of number of operations performed each year. 70% of the cases performed are quadrantectomy or partial resection, which is more sparing. When mastectomy is required, in most cases IEO guarantees the immediate reconstruction using techniques that depend on the individual situation: cooperation between breast experts and plastic-reconstructive surgeons allows us to achieve the best aesthetics after breast surgery.

When the tumor is not palpable (micro calcifications or very small nodules), localization techniques are used to avoid errors and unnecessary removal of healthy tissue: ROLL (Radioguided occult lesion localization), invented at IEO, is the most widely-used technique around the world with the best results.

Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy on the operated breast is a normal procedure in the case of quadrantectomy or partial resection for cancer. It is defined as "complementary" because it completes surgery and reduces the risk of disease recurrence.

Intraoperative Radiotherapy

The intraoperative radiotherapy is one of the excellence in the care of breast cancer at IEO. Thanks to the studies carried out at IEO, it can be performed in the course of a quadrantectomy intervention as a single dose that completely replaces the course of external beam radiation therapy.

Nipple-sparing Mastectomy

Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy is a surgical technique that was developed by Institute more than 10 years ago (first interventions dating back to 2002). This action allows the removal of the mammary gland entirely preserving the outer shell (skin and nipple) and optimally preserving the integrity of the female aspect. Breast reconstruction is performed simultaneously with the mastectomy, usually with implants (expander or definitive prosthesis).

Pharmacological treatments for breast cancer

The pharmacological treatments, that is chemotherapy and/or endocrine therapy and/or the so called receptor medications, depend on the histological examination related to surgery.

Physicians at the IEO have developed and validated the most widely used and effective techniques in surgical care through integration with radiotherapy and pharmacology procedures adopted today worldwide.