NPOAS was in beautiful Seattle, WA over the weekend, for our sixth annual conference of The American Society of Breast Surgeons, exhibiting and advocating for AFC to be the standard of care for women going flat after mastectomy.
We had a great conversation with Dr. Amanda Woodworth, who teaches the angel wing technique in the pre-meeting oncoplastic course. We gave out lots of My Choice: AFC patient education brochures and received many new orders for clinical use. We discussed (with everyone who approached our booth!) the pending federal legislation to ensure that surgeons are paid for the extra work required to do a good aesthetic flat closure. We also discussed the importance of populating our surgical photo database so that patients can see what a flat closure might look on their specific body type, as well as the ongoing research into flat closure that is laying the foundation for a better standard of care.
The society is moving forward in incorporating AFC into the conference. For the past four years, ASBRS has included flat closure technique in their hands-on oncoplasty course. New this year was an important presentation on aesthetic flat closure technique (de-epithelialization to minimize concavity) by Dr. Kristin Lupinacci. And Dr. Anne Peled also presented on nerve sparing techniques to preserve sensation during mastectomy – applicable to flat closure, and also truly fascinating!
We feel privileged to continue to be at the conference every year. And we will continue to push our agenda forward to ensure that every woman facing mastectomy is informed about the choice to go flat, and that every woman who chooses flat gets a good aesthetic outcome the first time.
