Dr. Harness if I get a mastectomy do I need chemotherapy (chemo)? Dr. Jay Harness gives breast cancer treatment and facts. He's the President American Society of Breast Surgeons. St. Joseph Hospital Comprehensive Breast Center.
Dr. Jay Harness:
A very common question that I am asked is the question ‘Oh gosh, if you just get rid of the breast does that mean I do not need all that other bad stuff. I don’t need chemotherapy. I don’t need radiation therapy.’ The answer to it is you may well need the chemotherapy because we think of breast cancer as a systemic disease as soon as there is growth through the wall of the ducts cancer cells can shut off, sounds like dandruff and float and go elsewhere in the body. So, cells elsewhere in the body that were most concerned about and that is why chemotherapy or anti estrogen pill therapies are necessary to go after those cells.
So, regardless of what is done with the breast saving it or removing it the other therapies are treating the whole body and are very important.
Bio:
Jay K. Harness, MD, FACS is recognized nationally and internationally for his work in the fields of breast and endocrine surgery. Over his career, he has established three multi-disciplinary breast centers including the nation’s first academic multi-disciplinary at the University of Michigan in 1985. In 2003, Dr. Harness established the St. Joseph Hospital Comprehensive Breast Center in the city of Orange, California, which is, located Orange County. Over the years, Dr. Harness has held various academic appointments including at the University of Michigan where he attended medical school and did all of his surgical training as well as at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, the University of California, Davis, the University of California, San Francisco, and now currently at the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Harness is the immediate past-President of The American Society of Breast Surgeons and is President-elect of Breast Surgery International. He has also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of The American Society of Breast Surgeons, Secretary-Treasurer and President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. Dr. Harness is a member of the Medical Advisory Board of EmpowHer. He is well-published with 80 articles and book chapters in the medical literature. He has also been the lead editor of two textbooks: Breast Cancer-Collaborative Management (1988) and Ultrasound and Surgical practice: Basic Principles and Clinical Applications (2001).
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