Input From a Multidisciplinary Team of Medical Providers is ‘Necessary’ to Manage Contralateral Breast Cancer, Says Expert

During the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), CancerNetwork^® spoke with Siddhartha Yadav, MD, MBBS, a medical oncologist and assistant professor of Medicine and Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, about multidisciplinary takeaways related to his population-based prospective CARRIERS study exploring germline genetic mutations and other factors as risks for contralateral breast cancer.

According to Yadav, multiple teams are involved in terms of breast cancer risk-management, including medical, surgical, and genetic oncologists. He says that this multidisciplinary collaboration is necessary for informing risk-management decision-making with patients with breast cancer.

Transcript:

When we think of contralateral breast cancer risk-management, there are multiple teams that are involved. As medical oncologists, we tend to be involved in a lot of these discussions. A lot of risk-management strategies also involve surgical intervention, so our surgical colleagues tend to be involved in those discussions, as well. In addition, our colleagues in genetics can also help guide provide these risk estimates in terms of understanding what the contralateral breast cancer risk is based on family history and several other demographic variables, as well.

When we think of how best to manage the contralateral breast cancer risk in germline mutation carriers, input from all of these teams is necessary to better understand the benefits of certain intervention versus the risks, and taking into account all of those factors, a final decision in conjunction with the patients should be made.

Reference

Yadav S, Boddicker NJ, Na J, et al. Population-based estimates of contralateral breast cancer risk among carriers of germline pathogenic variants in ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, and PALB2. Presented at the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; December 6-10, 2022; San Antonio, TX. Abstract GS4-04.