If you’re looking for an experienced breast surgeon to treat your breast cancer, turn to Cape Fear Valley Health. We offer every type of mastectomy and lumpectomy as well as breast reconstruction and support services.
Breast Cancer Surgery
Most people who have breast cancer need surgery to remove their tumor. In fact, surgery is the main treatment for breast cancer that hasn’t spread beyond your breast.
Types of Breast Cancer Surgery
There are two kinds of breast cancer surgery, and both are available at Cape Fear Valley Health:
- Lumpectomy: Your surgeon removes your tumor and a small amount of surrounding tissue (called a margin). Because this leaves most of your breast intact, a lumpectomy is also known as breast-conserving surgery.
- Mastectomy: Your surgeon removes your entire breast — or both breasts (known as a double mastectomy). There are several types of mastectomy. Each removes a different amount of breast tissue and, in some cases, surrounding structures (like muscle tissue or lymph nodes).
You may be able to choose between a lumpectomy and mastectomy, especially if you have early-stage breast cancer.
Your Cape Fear Valley Health breast surgeon will help you understand the options available to you. They’ll discuss the risks and benefits of each option, and they’ll help you decide what’s best for you.
Our Approach to Mastectomy and Lumpectomy Surgery
At Cape Fear Valley Health, you’re part of a team focused solely on you and your breast cancer journey.
Just as quarterbacks lead football teams, your care team will be led by your breast surgeon. You and your surgeon will create a game plan (surgical plan) to remove your tumor. And this plan may require the assistance of other players (cancer specialists).
For example, your surgeon may recommend you have chemotherapy to shrink your tumor before surgery. In this case, you’ll work with a medical oncologist. Or, if you need radiation therapy to kill any lingering cancer cells after surgery, you’ll see a radiation oncologist.
Together, your team will guide you through treatment — ensuring you receive the safest and most effective combination of treatments.
Lumpectomy vs. Mastectomy: Choosing Your Surgery
Our breast surgeons understand there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to treat your breast cancer. And they believe you should have a say in how much breast tissue to remove.
Some of the criteria we’ll discuss when evaluating your surgery options include:
- Your tumor’s size: We’ll consider the size of your tumor compared to the size of your breast. We’ll also confirm whether the cancer is confined to your breast or has started to spread.
- Your medical and family history: We offer genetic testing to see if you carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation. If so, your risk of breast cancer recurrence is higher than average.
- Your willingness (and ability) to have radiation therapy: If you have a lumpectomy, you’ll probably need radiation treatments afterward. This lowers your risk of cancer recurrence.
- Your personal needs: Whenever possible, we accommodate your personal preferences. For example, if preserving your natural breast is important to you, you may be able to choose a lumpectomy. If you’re concerned about your breast cancer coming back, you may opt for a mastectomy — with or without breast reconstruction.
Types of Mastectomy We Offer
Our breast surgeons have experience performing all types of mastectomy surgery. These include:
- Simple mastectomy: With this procedure, also known as a total mastectomy, we remove your breast tissue, nipple, areola and skin.
- Skin-sparing and nipple-sparing mastectomy: We leave as much of your breast skin as we can and try to preserve your nipple. You may prefer this option if you’re planning to have breast reconstruction surgery.
- Radical mastectomy: During this surgery for more advanced breast cancer, we remove your breast along with the muscles underneath. We also remove lymph nodes from under your arm.
- Modified radical mastectomy: We remove your breast and underarm lymph nodes but leave your chest muscle intact.
- Double mastectomy (bilateral mastectomy): We remove both breasts.
- Prophylactic mastectomy (preventive mastectomy): With this option for people with a very high risk of breast cancer, we proactively remove the breasts.
Types of Lumpectomy We Offer
We also offer different approaches to lumpectomy surgery, based on your tumor’s size and location inside your breast:
- Wide local excision: We remove just the tumor, plus a small margin of tissue around it.
- Quadrantectomy: We remove about one-quarter of your breast. This includes some of your ducts (tubes that carry milk to your nipple) and lobules (glands that make breast milk).
Many studies have shown that lumpectomy followed by radiation has the same cancer recurrence rates as removing the entire breast.
What to Expect
At Cape Fear Valley Health, we want you to have a positive breast cancer surgery experience. We’ll make sure you understand what to expect before, during and after your mastectomy or lumpectomy.
For example, we’ll discuss:
Lymph node removal
During some surgeries, we remove one or two lymph nodes near your tumor to check for cancer cells. This is called a sentinel lymph node biopsy. It tells us whether or not your cancer has started to spread.
In other cases, we remove all of the lymph nodes from your armpit area. This is known as an axillary lymph node dissection. We usually perform this procedure if we’re concerned about (or have found) cancer cells in your lymphatic system.
Breast reconstruction
If you’re considering surgery to rebuild or reshape your breast(s) after breast cancer surgery, we’ll connect you with our plastic surgeons. We offer several types of breast reconstruction surgeries:
- Immediate breast reconstruction, which takes place at the same time as your mastectomy or lumpectomy.
- Delayed reconstruction, which is an option if you prefer to schedule a separate procedure.
- Aesthetic flat closures, which is an option if you prefer to “go flat” but need to have excess skin and tissue removed.
Additional cancer treatments
A mastectomy or lumpectomy may be just one part of your overall treatment plan. For example, if you have hormone-receptor positive breast cancer, you may need to take medications that lower certain hormone levels.
We’ll let you know if we recommend you have chemotherapy, radiation therapy or other treatments before or after surgery.
