Together against Breast Cancer

Top interdisciplinary care at the Cancer Center of the Wiener Privatklinik - An article by Prof. Dr. Christoph Zielinski

Breast cancer is an extremely common disease in “Western civilization”, affecting one in eight women in the course of their lives. It is therefore a special task of the Cancer Center at the Wiener Privatklinik to deal with this disease and its treatment in detail. Without question, the care of patients suffering from breast cancer involves many specialist disciplines from the fields of diagnostics, surgery, internal oncology and radiotherapy in order to arrive at a recommendation for optimal, patient-oriented therapy based on intensive cooperation. At the Cancer Center of the Wiener Privatklinik, this is achieved in a qualitatively excellent manner by discussing each patient and her individual disease in an interdisciplinary tumor board.

So why is this problem and this disease so complex? This is because breast cancer is always associated with the risk of tumor cells spreading to distant sites. This manifests itself in the fact that after an operation and removal of the tumor, the disease can recur in distant locations such as the liver, lungs, skeleton and – in the worst case – the brain. This makes it all the more important to use internationally recognized criteria to treat this microscopic spread, which cannot be detected by the best radiological examinations at an early stage, in order to prevent it from spreading after the operation. This is achieved excellently by chemotherapy before the operation in order to shrink the tumor and thus to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatment for such spread. In cases where surgery is the first step, chemotherapy treatment is carried out afterwards.

Thanks to the availability and high level of expertise in this area of breast cancer at the Radiology Center, which is located at Wiener Privatklinik, it is possible to diagnose breast diseases, including the removal of tissue in the event of suspicious breast changes, as well as to rule out manifest seeding using magnetic resonance examinations, computer tomography (CT) and, above all, PET-CT.

Once the diagnosis has been made, the interdisciplinary tumor board at the Wiener Privatklinik discusses the best course of action in each individual situation. The aim is always to perform breast-conserving surgery, which is possible in a very high percentage of patients (around 90%). It is also being discussed whether chemotherapeutic treatment prior to surgery (“neoadjuvant therapy”) makes sense. Depending on the tumor characteristics, this can include chemotherapy and immunotherapy and is administered several times preoperatively.

Once breast-conserving surgery has been performed, follow-up radiotherapy is usually recommended to eliminate small tumor nests in the affected breast. This can also be carried out at the Wiener Privatklinik in the private radiotherapy center called “Amethyst”, where the most modern methods of treatment with minimized side effects are possible.

Since more than 50% of all breast cancers grow under the influence of female sex hormones, anti-hormonal therapy in tablet form is often added in such cases, which must be taken over a consistent, prolonged period after the operation in order to prevent the cancer from growing again.

This means that we at the Cancer Center of the Private Clinic are able to apply the most innovative therapy methods if a patient finds herself in the unfortunate situation of developing breast cancer. Thanks to our methods, however, we are able to turn this unfortunate situation around.

Once a seeding has occurred, which is visible during follow-up examinations using radiological methods, we are now able to significantly extend the survival time of the disease using very effective anti-hormonal methods, chemotherapy or immunotherapy. This can extend over many years, even if the disease is no longer curable at such a stage, but can be chronicized, which is the epitome of “living with cancer”.

The Cancer Center at Wiener Privatklinik is ready to stand by your side in this difficult life situation, and we all work every day to get life back on track. This is possible and feasible.