MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed female cancer and remains the main cause of cancer mortality in women. “ Last year in Italy there were about 55 thousand new cases and unfortunately 12 thousand women did not make it. But we can look to the future, but also to the present, with greater optimism, because the numbers are in constant improvement”, says Professor Oreste Gentilini, director of the Unity of Surgery of the Mammella dell’IRCCS Hospital San Raffaele in Milan and professor of General Surgery at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. At the head of one of the most recognized Breast Units in Italy (it is in Lombardy UNIENISO 9001 since 2016), Professor Gentilini leads a multidisciplinary team within a structure that every year performs about 800 interventions, of which 500 for breast cancer, with immediate reconstruction in more than 90% of cases. “At the moment we know that about 90% of women can be healed after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis and these numbers can be even better when the diagnosis is done earlier,” Gentilini points out. The merit of this lies in the progress of scientific research and innovations available both in the pharmaceutical and surgical field. “We have more knowledge and this allows us to better customize the care – he points out. There is a greater adherence to screening programs and in this way we can make an early diagnosis that is essential to improve healing possibilities. Moreover, today we have innovative drugs that have substantially revolutionized the treatment of breast cancer. The set of these three characteristics – greater knowledge, early diagnosis and new drugs – allows us to make interventions that are much less invasive than the past, more precise, more limited and therefore more personalized for the individual patient.” As mentioned, the team is multidisciplinary: senologist surgeons, plastics, oncologists, radiotherapists and radiologists, gynecologists, geneticists, pathologists collaborate with the case manager and breast navigator nurse to offer personalized routes; psychological, nutritional, physiotherapy and fertility preservation services are also available. Among the techniques used are dialctomy with bingeal lymph node biopsy and immediate reconstruction with prostheses or expanders, and endoscopic and robotic mininvasive surgery. The Breast Unit was also a pioneer in nipplesparing mastectomy with prepettoral reconstruction, which preserves the areola and improves the aesthetic result. In 2025, the Hospital introduced a new endoscopic mininvasive technique for mastectomy: a more precise operation, which reduces scar and preserves sensitivity. The Unit also participates in the EUBREAST international network and conducts research projects aimed at avoiding axillary emptying; it offers pathways dedicated to patients with BRCA mutations and has contributed to the achievement of the three Rosa Bollini 2026-2027 awarded by Fondazione Onda for excellence in the care of women. The Breast Unit led by Professor Gentilini is also part of the Comprehensive Cancer Center of San Raffaele. “Offer additional opportunities to patients. One that I would like to point out is the possibility of accessing fertility preservation techniques that we know can be particularly relevant when we have to manage and cure young women, who unfortunately have to go through this type of path”, explains the professor, who then dwells on how the research conducted at San Raffaele has a concrete impact on women taken care of by the Hospital. “I have the pleasure and privilege of presiding over an international research organization called U-BREAST which conducts major international studiesi. For the patient this is a great opportunity that translates into being able to participate in research projects, i.e. having the opportunity to receive today those that are likely to be the standard treatments of tomorrow – he explains -. In our Breast Unit about 30% of patients are included in clinical research projects. There are some that concern surgical management of patients who have positive lymph nodes and are treated with primary systemic therapy, always with the aim of improving the quality of life of patients. But we also have other major projects, one of which concerns the possibility of using a portable PET-TAC tool with which you can evaluate intraoperative images to reduce the possibility of having positive margins and thus reducing the possibility of having to operate patients again. We can also insert patients into an international European project that concerns the use of artificial intelligence and that allows, to those who fight breast cancer, to have a greater awareness of what will be their external aspect after surgery, which is absolutely not easy neither to explain nor to understand. Through this possibility we think that women can be more involved in decision-making that leads to the choice of the best intervention for each individual patient.”.
– San Raffaele press office photos –(ITALPRESS).
