Early Detection, Cutting Edge Treatments for Breast Cancer Patients

Award-winning journalist Joan Lunden understands the importance of cancer screening.

Ms Lunden, former co-host of ABC’s Good Morning America, spoke with sports commentator Roy Firestone regarding her experience with breast cancer in advance of her keynote speech at the upcoming 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference, which begins February 26, planned and developed by ACCME-accredited Physicians’ Education Resource, LLC (PER).

In her interview, she shares her personal battle with breast cancer and how despite receiving a clean mammogram, she followed up with an ultrasound because she had learned it was an important second check for women with dense breast tissue. A recent study found that for women with dense breasts who have a negative mammogram, an ultrasound identified an additional 3.2 cancers per 1000 women.

Ms Lunden has also been documenting her treatment at JoanLunden.com and her keynote address at the Miami Breast Conference will focus on the cancer patient’s perspective.

“Had I walked out of that radiology lab that day only having a mammogram, I would have gone about my merry way—‘I’m fine’—and I would have had a fast-growing, virulent, rare form of breast cancer growing in my right breast,” Ms Lunden said.

More than 40,000 women die every year from breast cancer, despite significant advances in research and treatment. The 4-day conference Ms Lunden will speak at will attract 1000 of the world’s top minds in medical, surgical, and radiation oncology to the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel.

A companion interview, also conducted by Mr Firestone, with both Ms Lunden and Patrick I. Borgen, MD, of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and chairman of the Miami Breast Conference, discussed the rapidly evolving field of breast cancer treatment.

He discusses the importance of continued education about breast cancer and his role in identifying more effective therapies to help more women prevent breast cancer, detect it early, and survive it once having been diagnosed.

“It is so hard to stay current in breast cancer,” Dr Borgen said. “It’s a field that changes week to week, month to month. We’ll have more than a thousand doctors in Miami who want to get it right, who want to do it better. And while the studies are very clear for triple negative breast cancer to give chemo first, many surgeons still resist.”

PER Joan Lunden Video Interview

PER Borgen/Lunden Video Interview

To register or view the agenda for the 32nd Annual Miami Breast Conference, please visit http://www.gotoper.com.