PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — A Lake Worth woman is overjoyed by the strides made in breast cancer research that had her back on her feet in no time.
“I was a dental assistant for a 100 years,” Jodi Marcello said. “I didn’t have to have chemo, thank God,” she said.
Dr. Jason Hechtman was Marcello’s surgeon.
“My patient will tell you herself she really had no pain," he said. "Afterwards, she was on her feet, walking around and back to full function very quickly.”
Marcello remembers the phone call when she first learned she had cancer.
“I shook so bad I couldn’t even keep phone in my hand when the doctor was talking,” Marcello said.
Hechtman is with Tampa General and said the technology used in Marcello’s case is saving lives.
“If you go further back, we used to do mastectomies for all—now we can take out an amount like this," he said. "Little tiny parts of breast, no pain, they’re on their feet.”
Marcello was back on her feet one day after surgery.
“Of course, you rest after surgery, but the next day I was fine," she said. "I didn’t even realize I had had it, there was no pain.”
A myriad of breakthroughs for breast cancer patients in the last five years— from imaging to surgery tools—has changed everything.
“We’ve had a new realm of surgeries called oncoplastic surgery, where we’ve melded oncology of getting cancer out and melded it together with plastic surgery, so surgery techniques with limited effects,” Hechtman said. “We have a hidden scar technique, which means we can hide the incisions in different areas of the breast, so no one can see them. So women and men, if they have breast cancer, you can hide the scars.”
Hechtman said even the radiation therapy that he uses has minimal side effects.
“Even the radiation we use, we have partial breast radiation instead of radiating a six week therapy," he said, "we can get them down to a week, with minimal pain, minimal side effects minimal skin changes it’s incredible.”
Breast cancer treatment has personal meaning to Hechtman, as his own grandmother fought with the disease.
“When I see my patients and they’re fighting the disease, I always see a little bit of grandmother in them—scared like my grandma was,” he said.
However, Hechtman has a message for all those battling cancer today.
“Yes it’s scary, cancer is scary, but there’s so many ways," he said. "Don’t need to be scared. These are paths that will get you back to normal function of life almost immediately.”
The West Palm Beach VA Medical Center reached also milestone for women veteran care and just recently acquired stereotactic breast-biopsy technology.
The VA said the innovative technology uses mammography to help locate a breast abnormality and removes a tissue sample for study under a microscope. They said the technology is less invasive than a surgical biopsy and is an easy way to test tiny masses that are not visible on an ultrasound.
Hechtman also talked about a new technology he uses called savvy scalp that helped in Marcello's case.
He said, similar to the VA technology, it helps direct the physician directly to the area that needs to be removed and results in less pain for the patient.
