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Plastic Surgery is a Breast Cancer Treatment Option

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iStock 000006250106XSmall 201x300 Plastic Surgery is a Breast Cancer Treatment Option

Early Detection and Breast Cancer Screening

Cancer is one of the most distressing diseases that could take a toll on anyone- be it the actual patient or his/her family. According to the latest research, it is predicted that in ten or twenty years, malignancies or cancer would be the leading cause of mortality in the world. It is for this reason that physicians are continuously experimenting in order to find a cure or a way to manage cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer that afflicts women both in developing and developed countries. Like other forms of cancer, it may have a wide range of effects to a person. Weakness, weight loss, easy fatigability and low immune defences are the most common of which. These are just the symptoms that can be felt during the early stages of the disease but as it progresses, the symptoms also get worse. Obviously, the importance of early diagnosis, like self breast examination and regular check-ups, should be emphasized. Preventive actions must also be taken, but for the advanced stages, more invasive approaches should be considered.

Major treatment options employed by physicians usually involve chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. However, not one form of therapy is 100% effective in treating cancer. Most often, these treatments are used hand in hand to manage cancer. Physicians and patients must come to terms as to the specific type of treatment to be employed. There are certain indications for each mode of treatment and it is the job of the physician to discuss its pros and cons so that the patient can make a well-informed decision as to her preferred treatment plan.

Sheryl Mendlinger, an administrative manager at the Institute on Urban Health Research in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University, made a model that describes how breast cancer patients acquire knowledge regarding their condition. There are four ways of knowledge acquisition. Authoritative type is the one that comes from a person of authority (i.e. physicians). Those who have know-how about the clinical aspect and the health care system fall under technical knowledge. Knowledge gathered from observing friends are called embodied knowledge while traditional knowledge is the one that is passed from generation to generation in a family.

Based on this model, one might say that relying on authoritative knowledge is best when it comes to deciding on appropriate breast cancer treatment but this is not 100% true. In order for a treatment plan to work, it must be done by both the physician and the patient. This ensures compliance and higher success rate. For the authoritative point of view, physicians must give out objective information on the best treatment option based on the patient’s current condition but the patient should be the one to give the final say.

For breast cancer, the most common form of treatment people know is mastectomy or breast removal. This is especially true if the type of cancer is too aggressive that removal of all affected tissues and lymph nodes is necessary and that it can no longer be fully addressed by chemotherapy or radiation therapy alone. Surgical approach has a dual effect once cancer cells are removed in the body. The downside is that the patient would only have one breast. This would somehow leave a change or disturbance in the body image of a person that sometimes ended up in depression. To address this, reconstructive surgery or plastic surgery is considered. This may be a way to restore the patient’s self confidence and thus help in her recovery against cancer. Also, if the patient recovers from cancer and agrees to have reconstructive surgery of her breast, she would not feel like she had been a cancer patient. Remember that there is a way to address the most mentally impeding effect of cancer that can help restore the patient’s views and attitudes towards her life ahead.

Plastic Surgery is a Breast Cancer Treatment Option is a post from: Plastic Surgery News


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