Being part of Sutter Health has many advantages, including the ability to share resources and expertise among clinicians who all have a common goal—to improve outcomes for our patients.

The Breast Cancer Project

What is our Breast Cancer Project? Sutter Health launched the Breast Cancer Project with a massive outreach campaign detailing new breast cancer care guidelines that promote early detection, needle biopsies and other least invasive procedures, and breast conservation. We also emphasize shared decision-making between patients and physicians.

Breast Cancer Facts

• Breast cancer will strike one out of eight women during their lifetime, making it the most common cancer among women.
• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of female cancer deaths, killing one out of five women who get the disease.
• The estimated number of new breast cancer cases exceeded 210,000 for 2003 with nearly 40,0001 deaths nationwide.
• Breast cancer costs the nation’s health care system an estimated $5 billion a year.

Early Dectection is the Key
Thanks to better screening and treatment methods, breast cancer deaths have steadily declined over the past decade. When caught early, most breast cancers confined to the breast ducts or breast tissue can be cured. Survival rates decrease considerably when the cancer spreads to the surrounding lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Breast Cancer Project Goals

• Improve quality of care and outcomes for breast cancer patients.
• Promote early detection of breast cancer through mammography screening.
• Encourage minimally invasive diagnostic techniques and breast conservation.
• Ensure appropriate additional (adjuvant) chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and/or radiation therapy.

Breast Cancer Care Guidelines

• Early Detection and Screening
  When caught early, breast cancer is one of the most curable cancers. Women diagnosed with cancers in Stage 0 or I experience a 95 percent cure rate. Survival rates go down dramatically if the cancer is detected after it spreads to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body Stage II, III or IV. While regular clinical and patient self-breast exams are important, mammography is the best screening tool. Mammography can detect cancers up to two years before they can be felt. Technological advances, such as digital mammography and computer-aided detection (CAD), are greatly improving mammography accuracy and are now available at a number of Sutter Health facilities.



• Needle Biopsy - While a mammogram or physical exam may detect a suspicious area in the breast, it is only the first step. A biopsy (tissue sample) must be done to determine if the area contains cancer cells, and if so, what type of cancer and what stage. A much easier and less invasive biopsy procedure is available today - stereotactic breast biopsy. Done under local anesthetic, this outpatient procedure uses a thin needle to obtain a tissue sample from the suspicious area in the breast. Just as accurate as traditional surgical biopsy, needle biopsy is much quicker, less painful and less costly. It also leaves no disfiguring scar and recovery is much faster since no incision is necessary.



• Mastectomy vs. Breast Conservation - More and more women, especially those with Stage 0-II, are opting for less invasive breast conservation techniques (lumpectomy) rather than mastectomy (removal of the entire breast and surrounding lymph nodes). Studies show that both options provide the same long-term survival rates in women with early stage breast cancer. Breast conservation generally involves a lumpectomy (removal of the cancer and surrounding tissue only) and radiation treatment. Depending on the woman and the type of cancer, some lymph nodes may also be removed, and additional hormone or chemotherapy (adjuvant therapy) may be necessary to reduce the chance of recurrence and/or new cancers. New and better cancer drugs, such as Tomaxafin and Raloxifine, also make breast conservation a more viable option than in the past.

The Sutter Health Breast Cancer Project calls for less invasive treatment options whenever appropriate and for physicians to actively involve women in the decision-making process when it comes to deciding which treatment is best for them.

Where are We Now?

Comprehensive Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer

For a number of years, we have actively promoted early diagnosis and using less invasive techniques for breast cancer treatment. Having exceeded our original goals, we are now turning our attention to improving clinical management of those patients with later-stage breast cancer.

We also plan to focus our attention on reducing the time between diagnosis and treatment by setting new measures and monitoring performance on this critical component of care.

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Updated January, 2008