From the point of view of oncoplastic surgery, the introduction of Multidisciplinary Breast Disease Units has improved success rates for treatment and patient satisfaction.  

Conceived as a functional unit, the Breast Unit at Hospitales Universitarios San Roque in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria boasts up-to-date knowledge and ample experience, offering comprehensive women's health care, dealing with the full-spectrum of the disease.

The team of professionals in this open and dynamic Unit is cohesively disciplined, speaking the same language, and, therefore, sharing a single line of action in order to choose specific therapeutic strategies, a key factor in gaining the patient's trust. In terms of methodology, the team defines objectives, optimize resources, establishes a flexible action protocol adapted to each case and, what's most important, they involve the woman in making decisions about treatment.

In this sense, the unit dedicates as much time as necessary to each patient in order to explain the situation clearly, while, of course, maintaining the sort of compassionate and kind attitude that this complex problem demands. Thus-- by looking at each patient individually, with an open and comprehensive approach and avoiding doctrinarian measures-- we establish the trust that must necessarily prevail in team work situations in order to see the patient safely through a difficult personal experience.

At present, breast disease necessarily involves adopting, promoting and consolidating Oncoplastic Surgery in order to avoid the undesirable effects of cancer surgery. This branch of medicine rests on four basic pillars:                                                                                                                                                                         

1) Suitable prophylactic oncological surgery. It is not always necessary to remove the entire breast. Surgery should be more or less Conservative whenever possible, and Radical when necessary. Skin-sparing mastectomy has acquired special importance over the last few years, as it combines appropriately radical while providing excellent results with immediate reconstruction. Similarly, it is not always necessary to entirely remove axillary lymph nodes. Hospitales San Roque in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria offers Selective Sentinel Node Biopsy which helps prevent unnecessary amputations.                                                                                                                                                        

2 ) Immediate remodeling. Partial breast reconstruction in order to correct a wide range of defects caused by partial breast removal. The surgeon anticipates the defect that partially removing the breast will cause and uses oncoplastic techniques to minimize thatthatdefect.                                                                                                                                                                                  

3) Immediate breast reconstruction. This is done after performing a radical mastectomy. When amputation is necessary, it is necessary to reconstruct the breast offering the patient every currently available technique, which may be summarized as follows:                                                                                                          

3. 1 Purely prosthetic reconstruction:

• With implants.
• Silicone hydrogel prosthesis.
• Using expanders. This invariably requires a 2nd surgical intervention in order to replace expanders with implants.
• Using expander-prostheses (Becker-type). This provides a fixed volume of silicone and a shell that is later filled with gel until the total desired volume is attained.  

3. 2 Autologous tissue reconstructions (using the patient's own tissue), are represented by the use of myocutaneous flaps:

• From the latissimus dorsi (the back)
• from the rectus abdominus (the abdomen).                                            

3. 3 Mixed reconstruction. Reconstruction is carried out using myocutaneous flaps combined with a prosthetic implant.                                                                   

 

4) Symmetrization of the contralateral breast. One acceptable result of breast cancer surgery is that the breasts should appear symmetrical in shape, volume and position.  Symmetry may be addressed as follows:                          

4. 1 With added prophylactic intent: subcutaneous contralateral masectomy and prosthetic implant (particularly in highly bilateral tumors).                     

4. 2 Pure symmetrization.  mastopexy, breast reduction, breast augmentation               

With this know-how and these procedures, skills and attitudes, the Hospitales Universitarios San Roque in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Breast Unit offers a medical service that is fully capable of meeting every patient's expectations.