James W. Jakub, M.D., Surgical Oncologist: My name is Jim Jakub. I'm a surgical oncologist with a primary focus on breast cancer and melanoma. Approximately 1 in 8 or 12% of females born in the U.S. today will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Part of standard treatment for breast cancer does remain surgical management to remove the tumor.

Surgical management of breast cancer typically consists of either a lumpectomy often combined with radiation, or a mastectomy in which reconstruction can be performed based on patient's preference. It's very natural and intuitive and logical to think that a mastectomy is a better operation, will reduce the risk of recurrence, will reduce the risk of distance spread, improve my survival. The reality is when we follow patients long term and long term, we're talking 20 years, that survival rate, the recurrence rates are very similar with lumpectomy versus mastectomy. There's actually some ongoing research and publications based on population-based studies that actually have some suggestion that patients who have lumpectomy with radiation actually might have an improved survival over patients who have a mastectomy alone.

May 03, 2024