NCCN’s 2022 Clinical Guidelines for Breast Cancer and Guidelines for Breast Cancer Patients have been updated to include specific information on “flat closure”! National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) publishes best practice guidelines for clinicians and comprehensive information about treatment options for patients.
Breast cancer patient advocates and GPAC members Robyn Towt and Andrea Ottaiano worked with NCCN to implement the new guideline changes. Below is a message from Andrea, who was instrumental in getting the connection with NCCN.
"If anything positive has come out of me having cancer — three, breast cancer stage lll and IV, Cholangio Carcinoma , I would say that this guideline change is one of them. I started working on this back in November 2019 following the FDA Medical Device Hearings, with the goal to have more centers work on clinical trials that include studies on women with implants — post mastectomy, so basically post marketing studies, the ones that were supposed to be done, back in 2008-2012. The study idea changed and it made sense to do a survey of women who got expanders and implants after breast cancer and mastectomy’s and had many many complications including capsular contracture and a list of BII symptoms. Our study/data was a survey of 180 + women and their satisfaction on how they were educated on their surgery, informed consent and transparency of all treatment options. I solicited opinions from from very high level and well respected executives and clinicians in the Oncology Community before bringing a proposal/guideline change to the NCCN Panel and Review Committee. I needed a strong breast cancer, BII advocate to work closely with to move this forward. Robyn Towt jumped right in and helped create and facilitate the survey and was so instrumental on the calls we had with NCCN. My goal is to see many many changes for women going through Breast cancer for the benefit of their health. THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!! Go to NCCN.org to read the clinician and patient versions. I have cited the changes on this post. It was a team effort and I am so proud of the outcome!"
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