This content was provided by George Washington University Hospital.
Anita McSwain, MD, MPH, FACS, is a board-certified breast surgeon and the Associate Director of the GW Hospital Comprehensive Breast Care Center. Here, she discusses how the hospital helps to provide hope and healing for breast cancer patients.
How important is early detection for breast cancer and how has screening evolved?
Breast cancer has become a much more treatable disease and one of the reasons is early detection. When we find breast cancers earlier, there are smaller tumors and hopefully they haven’t spread, and then we have a lot more options for treatment and better outcomes.
Traditionally, we only had mammograms as a screening tool for breast cancer. But through the years, mammography itself has improved with the advent of digital mammography and then 3D mammography. Now we also have a host of other modalities that include whole-breast ultrasound and MRI.
GW Hospital and the Breast Imaging Center are unique in that we offer every woman found to have dense breast tissue additional imaging, either in the form of ultrasound or MRI. By combining all the different screening modalities that we have at GW Hospital, we are less likely to miss small tumors.
What breast cancer symptoms should patients watch for?
The tricky thing about breast cancer is that often there are no symptoms. That’s why screening with imaging is so very important. When we do see symptoms, most commonly, it’s a lump or a mass felt in the breast.
What types of advanced technology and treatment does GW Hospital offer for breast cancer?
In terms of imaging and screening, GW Hospital is the first in the area to use artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate every mammogram, in addition to the mammograms being read by a radiologist. It’s been found that AI can find cancers up to four years earlier on imaging than when they’re read by radiologists alone.
As far as research, at GW Hospital we are constantly evaluating new and novel drugs, including immunotherapy, vaccine studies and intratumoral injections. Our medical oncology group is looking at a trial evaluating novel ways of picking up cancer in the blood.
What do the GW Hospital Comprehensive Breast Care Center awards from the American College of Radiology and National Accreditation Program for Breast Cancers mean for patients?
These accreditation organizations established a set of standards that they believe breast cancer centers should meet. This is done in an attempt to try to ensure quality care is offered equally to all patients. Institutions like GW Hospital that are accredited have to meet these standards and institutions are reviewed every several years to ensure they continue to meet the quality expectations.
How does the center support its patients, whether or not they have breast cancer?
The GW Hospital Comprehensive Breast Care Center sees patients both with cancer and other breast conditions. We see a fair number of patients who are at higher risk of developing breast cancer based on family history or genetic propensities.
We also see patients who have been found to have atypical findings on prior breast biopsies that also put them in a higher risk category. We walk them through the process of figuring out what kind of screening and imaging is best and how often, in an attempt to not only reduce their risk of developing breast cancer in the future, but also if they do develop one, to try to pick it up on the earlier side.
Why should patients choose GW Hospital for care?
One thing that is really great about GW Hospital is that we work very closely. The breast surgeons work very closely with our medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, pathologists and plastic surgeons. We meet weekly and talk to each other all the time, and I think that makes a huge difference for the patients. You want a team behind you looking at things together and making sure that we’re all in agreement with what we’re recommending for the patient.
Most importantly, we collaborate with the patient and tease out what their desires are, what their priorities are with their treatment and what their challenges might be with their treatment. Then we come up with a plan together in collaboration that meets everybody’s needs as best as we can.
One of the benefits of coming to GW Hospital for your breast care is that we can see the patient through from start to finish, from the first mammogram to the biopsy to the consultation regarding treatment options — whether that includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or any combination of the three — and we provide support all along the way.
Let the GW Hospital family care for you and yours.
To find a doctor, call 888-4GW-DOCS (449-3627) or visit doctors.gwhospital.com
To learn more about GW Hospital’s Comprehensive Breast Care Center, visit gwhospital.com/breastcenter
Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of The George Washington University Hospital. The hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. For language assistance, disability accommodations and the nondiscrimination notice, visit our website.
