The requirements of a specialist breast centre

Abstract

This article is an update of the requirements of a specialist breast centre, produced by EUSOMA and endorsed by ECCO as part of Essential Requirements for Quality Cancer Care (ERQCC) programme, and ESMO. To meet aspirations for comprehensive cancer control, healthcare organisations must consider the requirements in this article, paying particular attention to multidisciplinarity and patient-centred pathways from diagnosis, to treatment, to survivorship. The centrepiece of this article is the requirements section, comprising definitions; multidisciplinary structure; minimum case, procedure and staffing volumes; and detailed descriptions of the skills of, and resources needed by, members and specialisms in the multidisciplinary team in a breast centre. These requirements are positioned within narrative on European breast cancer epidemiology, the standard of care, challenges to delivering this standard, and supporting evidence, to enable a broad audience to appreciate the importance of establishing these requirements in specialist breast centres.

The Diagnostic Performance of Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging in the Characterization of Breast Tumors: A Meta-Analysis

“…Recently, a recommendation produced by EUSOMA and endorsed by ECCO emphasized the importance of multidisciplinarity and patient-centered pathways from diagnosis to treatment, to meet aspiration for comprehensive cancer control. The specialists recommended that the breast radiology team should perform clinical examination, mammography, ultrasound and Doppler ultrasound of the breast and axilla, breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and biopsy under mammography, ultrasound, or MRI guidance after hospitalization (1). Accurately differentiating breast cancer from benign lesions is also important and challenging for clinicians using ultrasound or conventional mammography, especially in dense fibroglandular breasts (2).…”

Recommendations for triage, prioritization and treatment of breast cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…6. The multidisciplinary tumour boards (MDM) should be continued but performed via web meetings or restricted to one element of each discipline of the core team 10 . All decisions of the MDM should continue to be discussed with the patient and the final decision must account for the patients' preferences.…”

The patient’s pathway for breast cancer in the COVID‐19 era: An Italian single‐center experience

“…Breast cancer screening and diagnosis are done by breast radiologists in compliance with the European Society of Breast Cancer Specialists (EUSOMA) guidelines 3 . While screenings have been suspended, the activities of diagnosis for women with breast symptoms have been maintained active during the COVID‐19 emergency, with a reorganization of spaces and schedules in order to minimize the flow of patients to the breast radiology services.…”

“…In all cases of newly diagnosed breast cancer, a member of the MDT, usually the radiologist who did the diagnosis, conducted a first clinical examination of patients. As indicated by the EUSOMA 3 guidelines, the MDT meets once a week: This activity replaces face‐to‐face meetings with telematic conferences in order to preserve the health of the MDT components. The regular implementation of this new way of working appears to have no negative impact on the quality of work, guaranteeing greater serenity for the MDT meeting components.…”

“…This decision, adopted due to the necessity to reallocate resources and health workers to face the virus emergency, and to minimize the circulation of people and the consequent spread of virus, has extended the length of time between first diagnosis and surgery. Before the emergency, our unit respected the standard the time of 30 days from diagnosis to surgery for breast cancer, as required by the EUSOMA 3 guidelines, with an average of 22 days per patient. Nowadays, the median waiting time is 40 days.…”