Surgeons are specially trained physicians who use a variety of instruments, including scalpels, scopes, lasers, liquid nitrogen, heat, and light to treat cancer. Surgery can be used to remove all or part of a tumor, alleviate pain, or for reconstructive purposes. The type of surgery your surgeon will recommend will depend on the type of cancer you have as well as the size, stage, and location of the tumor.
For patients who need surgery to treat their breast cancer, there are a variety of options to best meet their physical and emotional needs. Breast-conserving surgery, or lumpectomy, removes cancer in the breast but preserves the healthy breast tissue. Patients who are not a candidate for, or choose not to have a lumpectomy, may have a mastectomy, which is the removal of the entire breast. For these patients, a breast reconstruction is an option.
Hunterdon Regional Cancer Center has an integrated breast reconstruction program for patients who are candidates for reconstructive surgery. Breast reconstruction can be done at the same time as mastectomy (immediate) or at a later time (delayed). Breast reconstruction helps to restore the natural appearance and feel of a breast after mastectomy. Breast reconstruction can be done using an implant, the patients own tissue or a combination of these methods. Not all patients are candidates for each method; this is something the patient and plastic surgeon will decide together. All types of reconstruction methods are available at Hunterdon Health and are performed by board-certified plastic surgeons.
