Disrupted sleep the night before breast surgery is associated with increased postoperative pain.

Despite the best available clinical care, pain after surgery is a virtually universal patient experience that can have pervasive negative consequences. Given the large variability among patients in postoperative pain levels, research on novel modifiable risk factors is needed. One such factor suggested by recent experimental studies indicates that disruption of even a single night's sleep can increase subsequent pain in healthy volunteers.

Anticipatory psychological distress in women scheduled for diagnostic and curative breast cancer surgery.

Background: Psychological distress is a central experience for women facing diagnostic and curative breast cancer surgery.

Purpose: The present study was designed to predict anticipatory distress in 187 women scheduled to undergo excisional breast biopsy or lumpectomy.

Method: Participants completed questionnaires assessing emotional distress and predictors of this distress (surgery type, worry about the surgical procedure, and worry about what the surgeon will find).

Hypnosis decreases presurgical distress in excisional breast biopsy patients.

Background: Excisional breast biopsy is associated with presurgical psychological distress. Such distress is emotionally taxing, and may have negative implications for postsurgical side effects and satisfaction with anesthesia. We investigated the ability of a brief hypnosis session to reduce presurgical psychological distress in excisional breast biopsy patients.

A randomized clinical trial of a brief hypnosis intervention to control side effects in breast surgery patients.

Background: Breast cancer surgery is associated with side effects, including postsurgical pain, nausea, and fatigue. We carried out a randomized clinical trial to test the hypotheses that a brief presurgery hypnosis intervention would decrease intraoperative anesthesia and analgesic use and side effects associated with breast cancer surgery and that it would be cost effective.

Methods: We randomly assigned 200 patients who were scheduled to undergo excisional breast biopsy or lumpectomy (mean age 48.

Radiation-associated extraskeletal osteosarcoma of the chest wall.

Radiation-associated sarcoma is a rare but potential complication of radiation therapy. Most reported cases of osteosarcoma of the chest wall following radiation therapy for breast cancer arise from the chest wall skeletal structures. In contrast, few cases of extraskeletal osteosarcomas have been reported.

Cytologic findings of spindle cell ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast: a case report.

Background: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), spindle cell type, is a rare and recently recognized entity in the breast. While the histologic features have been described in detail, no cytologic descriptions exist. We describe the cytologic and corresponding histologic findings in a case of spindle cell DCIS.

Sources of anticipatory distress among breast surgery patients.

Surgical consultation concerning the possibility of breast cancer is a distressing experience, and having to take the next step of breast surgery even more so for many women. However, the sources of variability in such presurgical distress are not well understood. Sixty-one women (mean age = 51) were recruited immediately following surgical consultation in which a recommendation of breast surgery (excisional biopsy/lumpectomy) was made.