“Avera Medical Minute AMcK: A Trifecta of Comprehensive Breast Care”

May 24, 2016
By: Jake Iversen

Hearing the word cancer is a like a punch in the gut, but innovation in the cancer world continues to make doctors jobs easier and patients’ lives longer. In fact, technology is already being used to speed up the healing and treatment in the breast cancer fight.

It was a friend’s breast cancer diagnosis that prompted Jana Franken to get her own a mammogram done. The scans revealed some calcifications and given Jana’s family history of breast cancer, doctors felt a baseline MRI was warranted. It’s a good thing they checked.

“The breast cancer wasn’t found on any mammogram. Basically because it was so close to my chest wall that it was undetectable.” said Franken.

Her cancer was aggressive but because it was caught early, Jana was the perfect candidate for a trifecta of comprehensive cancer care. First with oncoplasty, a plasma blade, and finally intraoperative radiation.

A tumor five millimeters in size was found, that meant Jana’s next visit was with breast surgeon Dr. Juliann Reiland.

“The first thing she said when she walked in the door is, this won’t kill you and that’s exactly what you want to hear.” said Franken.

Her cancer was aggressive but because it was caught early, Jana was the perfect candidate for a trifecta of comprehensive cancer care. First with oncoplasty, a plasma blade, and finally intraoperative radiation.

“I start oncoplasty when I meet the patient the first time. Because I’m looking at them and saying, what can I do to this breast? How can I make this look good? what would be my approach based on where the cancer is, the size of her breast, and what her goals are?” said Dr. Reiland, a breast surgeon with the Avera Medical Group Comprehensive Breast Care.

MM+Comprehensive+Breast+CareTo Dr. Reiland, oncoplasty serves two very important jobs. The first is to remove all the cancer, the second is to make sure the breast actually looks better than before and isn’t scarred by the process.

“To me that’s not acceptable, because if I have a woman that has breast cancer that’s not going to kill her, as most of them won’t, and yet I’m going to leave her scarred for life than what I done? I have not really help her greatly.” said Dr. Reiland.

Oncoplasty does require removing excess skin and tissue, but it’s essentially a breast lift. The process itself has become far more enhanced with the addition of the Plasma Blade, a very high-tech scalpel

“It makes sense to have the radiation when you were open in surgery just zap that tumor bed and hopefully it keeps it away for the rest of my life.” said Franken.

“It allows me to take off that extra skin and do it very quickly so that the patient doesn’t spend a lot of time in the operating room, and I do it with less blood loss so that it’s a very efficient way to do it and it takes so much less time to have the surgery done because I’ve got this great tool.” said Dr. Reiland.

Once the lump is removed, Dr. Reiland and radiation oncologist Dr. James Simon meet with the whole team and flush out their plan to deliver Jana an intraoperative radiation boost.

“It makes sense to have the radiation when you were open in surgery just zap that tumor bed and hopefully it keeps it away for the rest of my life.” said Franken.

After surgery, Jana’s treatment plan called for three weeks of radiation. She’s only got a handful of those sessions left but she’s healed up nicely. With the help of her doctors and her faith, she’s ready to put cancer behind her for good.

For women over age 50 they can have all of their radiation done in a single dose. With Jana only being 46, she can get a boost of the radiation, but for better health long-term it’s not the full dose.

“We want to be good stewards of this new technology and so every treatment that we give women is on the protocol so they have to be evaluated it’s a whole team effort and we all make sure that they are the right patient for the right reason.” said Dr. Reiland.

After surgery, Jana’s treatment plan called for three weeks of radiation. She’s only got a handful of those sessions left but she’s healed up nicely. With the help of her doctors and her faith, she’s ready to put cancer behind her for good.

“Shortly after I got the diagnosis, I saw on Facebook that somebody had this picture and it said ‘it’s handled’ signed with God’s signature and that’s my cover photo because I know that no matter how the outcome is, it’s handled.” said Franken.

Jana is from Sioux Center, Iowa which means a two hour round trip for her treatments. But every day, she was joined by her friends who made sure she was never alone in the fight. For more information just call 877-AT-AVERA.

For the original article follow the link below:

http://www.ksfy.com/home/headlines/Avera-Medical-Minute-AMcK-A-Trifecta-of-Comprehensive-Breast-Care-380275981.html