Lourdes takes its role in the war against breast cancer very seriously. From its primary physicians who emphasize risk assessment and screening to it’s surgical specialists who perform exacting tumor resections and skilled reconstructions after breast surgery, the Lourdes team coordinates care and works to optimize the patient experience as it saves lives and endeavors to reduce the impact of this disease.
Good, routine medical care is the first line of defense against breast cancer. A knowledgeable personal doctor or other healthcare provider who can help a woman understand and sometimes decrease risk is essential. Family history, diet and lifestyle, exposures and other factors play a part in determining risk of breast cancer, and the experienced primary provider can help patients take advantage of assessments, screening steps and testing recommendations. Lourdes community practitioners understand their role as a primary source of breast cancer education and their responsibility in encouraging patients to take the right precautions against this most common of cancers in women.
When women seek, or are referred to, breast imaging, they want the very highest quality, most accurate studies. The Lourdes team makes use of modern digital breast x-ray systems that permit more detailed mammography and more exacting examination of breast images, as well as much easier archiving of past studies and transmission of breast imaging. Through the services of the highly trained radiologists in Lourdes’ breast radiology service, patients may also benefit from breast ultrasound and MR imaging. These various methods of visualizing the breasts and any abnormalities within them also provide guidance for tissue-sampling (biopsy) procedures as well as tumor-resection operations.
The Lourdes team gathers as much information as possible about each case and then confers to determine a treatment pathway that may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, or medical therapy with drugs that are specific to certain varieties of breast cancer (targeted therapy). The goal of providing the best in breast surgery has received extra emphasis at Lourdes in recent years, and Lourdes’ talented and expanded group of breast surgeons are bringing the latest techniques and technologies to bear for each woman in each operation that they perform. Surgery may entail removal of just the tumor or removal of the breast and surrounding lymph nodes. Learn more about forms of breast surgery at Lourdes.
Patients also have access to complementary and holistic therapy through Lourdes integrative medicine practices and Wellness Center — as well as care for pain and side effects of treatment and disease.