Duke’s Breast Program is multidisciplinary -- designed to allow a woman to be seen by a team of specialists including a medical oncologist, surgical oncologist, radiation oncologist, and mental health professionals, all within one setting.
Physical therapists, and self-image resources are available as well. The breast cancer medical care team meets weekly to discuss individual patient cases and to formulate and review individual treatment plans.
There is no one-treatment-fits-all approach at Duke. We design each patient’s therapy to fit the unique parameters of her disease, drawing upon a wide range of available treatments.
These include local treatments that treat cancer just in the breast or an area of the breast -- such as surgery and radiation therapy -- and systemic treatments that can treat cancer cells elsewhere in the body, such as chemotherapy and hormonal therapy.
Duke breast cancer patients also have access to a wide range of clinical trials testing the very latest therapies.
As one of just ten U.S. medical centers designated by the National Cancer Institute as a Specialized Program in Research Excellence (SPORE) for breast cancer, Duke leads dozens of basic and clinical investigations to discover better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease.