Outcomes after total skin-sparing mastectomy and immediate reconstruction in 657 breasts.

Background: Total skin-sparing mastectomy (TSSM), a technique comprising removal of all breast and nipple tissue while preserving the entire skin envelope, is increasingly offered to women for therapeutic and prophylactic indications. However, standard use of the procedure remains controversial as a result oft concerns regarding oncologic safety and risk of complications.

Methods: Outcomes from a prospectively maintained database of patients undergoing TSSM and immediate breast reconstruction from 2001 to 2010 were reviewed.

Long-term reconstructive outcomes after expander-implant breast reconstruction with serious infectious or wound-healing complications.

Introduction: Immediate expander-implant breast reconstruction has been associated with postoperative complications, including infection and wound-healing problems. In extreme cases, these issues can lead to expander-implant loss. Little is known about the long-term reconstructive outcomes for patients who develop major complications threatening their expander-implant reconstructions.

Development and implementation of an Internet-based survivorship care program for cancer survivors treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Introduction: The Internet provides a widely accessible modality for meeting survivorship care needs of cancer survivors. In this paper, we describe the development and implementation of an Internet site designed as a base from which to conduct a randomized controlled trial to meet psycho-educational needs of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) survivors.

Methods: A cross-disciplinary team designed, wrote content, and programmed an Internet site for online study registration, consent, assessment, and study implementation.

Measuring musculoskeletal symptoms in cancer survivors who receive hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Introduction: Beyond documentation of high prevalence rates, research has not examined the qualities and characteristics of musculoskeletal symptoms in cancer survivors, possibly because measures have not been validated specifically for the assessment of these symptoms in survivors. We report here on a new measure of muscle and joint symptoms for survivors of hematologic malignancies and hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT).

Methods: In a cross-sectional design, 130 adults, 5-20 years after HCT, completed patient-reported outcomes.

Measuring social activities and social function in long-term cancer survivors who received hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Objective: Cancer survivors report deficits in social functioning even years after completing treatment. Commonly used measures of social functioning provide incomplete understanding of survivors' social behavior. This study describes social activities of survivors and evaluates the psychometric properties of the Social Activity Log (SAL) in a cohort of long-term survivors of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for cancer.