This article aims to present the results of a national, cross-sectional, voluntary, online survey on the presence and roles of associations of breast cancer patients and volunteers in Italian specialist breast centres. The survey was developed according to standard methods. The questionnaire was pre-tested by a random sample of three breast centres, loaded onto the SurveyMonkey platform, and piloted by one volunteer breast centre.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite recommendations, mammography screening is often insufficiently integrated into specialist breast centres. A national, cross-sectional, voluntary, online survey on this issue was carried out among the Italian breast centres associated with Senonetwork, the Italian network of breast cancer services.
Methods: A 73-item questionnaire was created, pre-tested and piloted.
Radiol Med
May 2022
Introduction: In 2016, the Italian Group for Mammography Screening and the Italian College of Breast Radiologists by the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology recommended that screening programmes and specialist breast centres actively invite women with a history of breast cancer to follow-up imaging.
Objective: A survey of breast centres associated with Senonetwork, the Italian network of breast cancer services, has offered the opportunity to assess the implementation of this recommendation.
Methods: A national, cross-sectional, voluntary, online survey was developed, pre-tested, and administered during the months July-October 2020.
Introduction: Pre-analytics involves handling and processing of microbiopsy and surgical specimen. It is critical for the preservation of morphology and the integrity of molecular markers, which are paramount as prognostic and predictive factors in breast cancer. Although pre-analytical variables in breast cancer are codified by national and international guidelines, there is currently no data on their actual endorsement in clinical practice among Breast Units (BU).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article is an update of the requirements of a specialist breast centre, produced by EUSOMA and endorsed by ECCO as part of Essential Requirements for Quality Cancer Care (ERQCC) programme, and ESMO. To meet aspirations for comprehensive cancer control, healthcare organisations must consider the requirements in this article, paying particular attention to multidisciplinarity and patient-centred pathways from diagnosis, to treatment, to survivorship.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: EUSOMA undertook the commitment of defining the requirements for a specialist breast centre, which has become the reference document for the implementation of breast centres.
Summary: The EUSOMA requirements for a specialist breast centre give clear indications regarding the requisite caseload, dedicated team composition (core and non-core team), organisation, availability of services and equipment throughout the patient pathway, quality control, and application of a multidisciplinary approach. The minimum number of cases is 150 newly diagnosed breast cancer cases per year.
In 2010, EUSOMA published a position paper, describing a set of benchmark quality indicators (QIs) that could be adopted by breast centres to allow standardised auditing and quality assurance and to establish an agreed minimum standard of care. Towards the end of 2014, EUSOMA decided to update the paper on QIs to consider and incorporate new scientific knowledge in the field. Several new QIs have been included to address the need for improved follow-up care of patients following primary treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The objective of this study was to evaluate if mammography screening attendance is associated with a reduction in late-stage breast cancer incidence.
Methods: The cohort included over 400,000 Italian women who were first invited to participate in regional screening programmes during the 1990s and were followed for breast cancer incidence for 13 years. We obtained individual data on their exposure to screening and correlated this with total and stage-specific breast cancer incidence.
Background: Reconstruction options following nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM) are diverse and not yet investigated with level IA evidence. The analysis of surgical and oncological outcomes of NSM from the Italian National Registry shows its safety and wide acceptance both for prophylactic and therapeutic cases. A further in-depth analysis of the reconstructive approaches with their trend over time and their failures is the aim of this study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper reports findings of the "Focus on Controversial Areas" Working Party of the Italian Senonetwork, which was set up to improve the care of breast cancer patients. After reviewing articles in English on the MEDLINE system on breast conserving surgery for invasive carcinoma, the Working Party presents their recommendations for identifying risk factors for positive margins, suggests how to manage them so as to achieve the highest possible percentage of negative margins, and proposes standards for investigating resection margins and therapeutic approaches according to margin status. When margins are positive, approaches include re-excision, mastectomy, or, as second-line treatment, radiotherapy with a high boost dose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nipple sparing mastectomy is deemed surgically and oncologically safe based on a long lasting literature data from reviews of single institution series. This study aims at evaluating surgical and oncological outcomes of NSM on a large multi-institutional scale, by means of the Italian National registry.
Methods: In July 2011 a panel of Italian specialists agreed upon and designed a National database of NSM.
Lancet Oncol
November 2014
Background: If treatment of the axilla is indicated in patients with breast cancer who have a positive sentinel node, axillary lymph node dissection is the present standard. Although axillary lymph node dissection provides excellent regional control, it is associated with harmful side-effects. We aimed to assess whether axillary radiotherapy provides comparable regional control with fewer side-effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCertification procedures help to improve the quality process by modifying organizational and clinical attitudes to the benefits of increased quality in the standards of care. It provides a critical attitude towards daily work and requests to dedicate sufficient time to multidisciplinary analysis on breast centre organization activity and performance. Breast Centres Certification (BCCERT) is a nonprofit association, operating in compliance with international standards on certification, which carries out voluntary certification of breast centres based on the requirements of the European Society of Breast Cancer Specialists (EUSOMA) and aims to improve and standardize the Level of patient care throughout Europe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis survey, conducted by the Italian breast screening network (GISMa), collects yearly individual data on diagnosis and treatment on about 50% of all screen-detected, operated lesions in Italy. The 2010 results show good overall quality and an improving trend over time. Critical issues were identified, including waiting times and compliance with the recommendations on not performing frozen section examination on small lesions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA consensus conference was held in order to provide guidelines for the use of adjuvant therapy in patients with Stage I carcinoma of the breast, using traditional information, such as tumor size, microscopic character, Nottingham index, patient age and co-morbidities, but also incorporating steroid hormone and Her-2-neu data as well as other immunohistochemical markers. The role of the genetic analysis of breast cancer and proprietary gene prognostic signatures was discussed, along with the molecular profiling of breast cancers into several groups that may predict prognosis. These molecular data are not currently sufficiently mature to make them part of decision making algorithms of recommendations for the treatment of individual patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis survey, conducted by the Italian breast screening network (GISMa), collects individual data yearly on about 50% of all screen-detected, operated lesions in Italy. The 2008-2009 results show good overall quality of diagnosis and treatment and an improving trend over time. Critical issues were identified, including waiting times and compliance with the recommendations on not performing frozen section examination on small lesions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The objective of this study was to evaluate prognostic factors of local and distant recurrence in patients diagnosed with T1a and T1b, lymph node-negative breast carcinoma (BC) with emphasis on human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status.
Methods: The authors reviewed 704 women with T1aT1bN0M0 BC who received treatment at the Radiation-Oncology Center of Florence University between November 2002 and December 2008. Patients with ductal carcinoma in situ or recurrent BC at presentation and patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy were excluded from the analysis.
Nipple discharge (ND) is a common symptom with a reported incidence of 2% to 5% of patients referred to breast cancer clinics. Approximately 90% of ND is of benign etiology. An underlying carcinoma is present with a rate of 6% to 21%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis survey, conducted by the Italian Breast Screening Network (GISMa), collects individual data yearly on about 50% of all screen-detected, operated lesions in Italy. The 2007 results show good overall quality of diagnosis and treatment and an improving trend over time. Critical issues were identified concerning waiting times, compliance with the recommendations on not performing frozen section examination on small lesions and on performing specimen X-rays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The randomized EORTC 10981-22023 AMAROS trial investigates whether breast cancer patients with a tumor-positive sentinel node biopsy (SNB) are best treated with an axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or axillary radiotherapy (ART). The aim of the current substudy was to evaluate the identification rate and the nodal involvement.
Methods: The first 2,000 patients participating in the AMAROS trial were evaluated.