Breast Cancer

NeuVax + Herceptin may provide a clinically meaningful benefit to breast cancer patients with low to intermediate HER2-expression.

If your newly diagnosed patient meets the criteria for warranting a genetics consultation and testing, do the necessary paperwork to have it happen BEFORE surgery!

Despite research being conducted and confirmed on the significance of breast density, most women don’t know that having dense breasts increases their risk for breast cancer and reduces a mammogram’s ability to detect cancer, according to a University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine study.

Along with the diagnosis of breast cancer comes many decisions regarding treatment options. Oncotype DX, a genomic/gene expression assay, provides quantitative assessment of chemotherapy benefit and risk of distant recurrence in early-stage estrogen receptor–positive (ER+), HER2/neu-negative breast cancer to assist in developing individualized treatment plans.

There are various points along the journey that we, as nurse navigators, need to be at the side of our patients when critical treatment decisions are being made. This is something that you do every day, and are more than familiar with regarding your role in education and support as it relates to this type of decision making.

Commonly when a breast cancer nurse navigator is educating and supporting a patient, the time period is focused on the point of diagnosis through their acute treatment. How do we really know if the patients, now as survivors, believe the right decisions were made regarding treatment options? How do we know they felt the decisions were made with their active input? Were they confident in their choices?

When we are discussing minorities, we are usually referring to African American, Hispanic/Latino, and the American Indian/Alaska Natives in our society. In addition, underserved women are those who have a decreased income and socioeconomic status, lower education levels, commonly lack health insurance, and have limited access to healthcare in general. These patient populations are particularly challenging when facing the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.