Breast Cancer Treatment Outcomes
Newton-Wellesley Hospital’s Auerbach Breast Center, in collaboration with the Mass General Cancer Center, is a high volume community breast center that provides advanced screening and diagnostic imaging. We provide personalized, expert treatment that is customized to the patient. Our program surpasses the national and regional benchmarks for quality care.
When a diagnosis of breast cancer is made, patients meet with a multidisciplinary team of breast cancer specialists – breast surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and nurses – to discuss treatment options. We then create an individualized treatment program for each patient. Plastic surgeons, physical therapists, genetic councelors and social workers are also available to our patients for referral on an individual basis.
In addition to breast cancer screenings and treatment, we offer risk analysis to help determine early on if you are a high risk for breast cancer.
Stage at diagnosis
Compared to the National Cancer Data Base, Newton-Wellesley has an earlier stage of diagnosis. We diagnose 69% of breast cancers as stage 0 or I. Nationally, 58% of breast cancers are diagnosed as stage 0 or I.
Types of breast cancer treatment
We use both hormonal therapy and surgery plus radiation more often than other institutions in the National Cancer Data Base.
Surgery by stage
More patients with early stages of breast cancer are treated with lumpectomies than mastectomies at Newton-Wellesley.
Age of breast cancer patients
Thirty-three percent of our patients are under age 50 at diagnosis, compared to 22% of patients nationally.
Time between mammogram and biopsy
The Society of Breast Imaging newsletter in 2004 challenged programs to limit the time between screening mammograms and biopsy to less than 10 to 12 days. Newton-Wellesley’s average time from mammography to biopsy is 4.4 days.
Breast cancer process measures
Patients at Newton-Wellesley who we recommend should have chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and radiation when appropriate have the procedures 100% of the time. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) ranks our percentage statistically better than average.