Dr. McGuire on Refinements Needed in Breast Cancer Surgery

Kandace McGuire, MD, associate professor of Surgery, UNC Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology, UNC School of Medicine, discusses refinements needed in surgery for the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer during the 2016 OncLive State of the Science Summit on Metastatic Breast Cancer.

It is important to consider age and the overall health of a patient when deciding whether surgery is an optimal treatment option, McGuire explains. Additionally, for many years, palliative surgery has been offered to patients. This is an option for patients whose primary tumor site is painful or otherwise uncomfortable for them.

However, more aggressive surgical approaches need to be conducted on patients for whom researchers believe could have a survival benefit from it. This includes breast surgery, axillary surgery, and radiation therapy.

However, there is also a subset of patients who may benefit from less surgery or no surgery at all. There may come a time where there may be a risk stratification device that could guide practitioners in which surgical approach is best for individual patients. Therefore, more clinical trials need to be conducted to see who will benefit from which technique.