Skin, hair and nails are often some of the biggest “victims” of therapies for breast cancer. Treatments are essential for healing, but its harmful effects can be prevented, alleviated and addressed successfully with an integrated vision. Surgery, chemotherapies, radiation therapies, and most recently, drugs specific targets, impact on the skin.
- “Irritant dermatitis, ulcers and canker sores usually appear with chemotherapy”
“The role of the dermatologist about the side effects of these treatments, and new, has increased, but the aesthetic aspect has been largely forgotten when you know that if the physical aspect that patients perceive is bad, worse quality of life and even, sometimes, their prognosis , because it creates disturbances, discouragement and depression. Clearly the goal is healing, but with an integrative approach, the evolution of the cancer process in general is much betterFor example, if the skin is hydrated, it is possible that surgical reconstruction more accessible, fact reproduced in the case of lymphedema in case of total mastectomy , “noted DM Aurora Guerra, professor of dermatology at the University Complutense Madrid and director of the forum discussion on breast cancer from dermatology: treatment effects on skin and hair , held today in Madrid.
Endorsed by that university, the University Hospital of Navarra, the Spanish Association of Women Dermatologists and Classroom Innovation Therapeutic drug Janssen, the day will have the prospect of dermatologists, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation therapists, who will analyze the impact of different therapies and prevention and approach.
According to Guerra, Head of the Dermatology Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, “irritative dermatitis, oral thrush and mucositis, dryness or skin sensitivity, hyperpigmentation, photosensitivity, ulcers and fissures, to a greater or lesser degree, usually widespread occurrence with chemotherapy. Not to mention the effects on nails and hair , “says the dermatologist, who insists that in all cases there are treatments repairers and appropriate measures dermatoestéticas .
Luis Manso, of Oncology Hospital on October 12, considered in all treated oncology dermatologic side effects from antineoplastic therapy have focused on alopecia, visible and important aspect. “Patients and speak for women, have been banners of the reinvindicaciones dermato – cosmetic and aesthetic derived from cancer treatment. The new dermato-oncology integrated solutions for cutaneous disorders cancer treatment . This new multidisciplinary medical design should be accessible to all patients. I think we have a chance to solve many problems for our patients, never thought, and as important to them as others, studied and controlled medically, like anemia or diarrhea. “
Cancer can become a chronic disease and therefore the breast reconstruction must be of sufficient quality to last many years, according to Francisco Leyva, Chief of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery of the Clinical Hospital of Madrid. “The reconstruction will be conditioned by the damage suffered by the skin caused by radiation therapy to these patients as part of a comprehensive treatment of the disease undergoing, although current plastic surgery techniques can reconstruct any partial or total defect mom with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of life of the patient. “
About radiotherapy, Elena González Guerra, the Dermatology Department of Clinical Hospital in Madrid, said that patients receiving radiotherapy need to track, because “much of the effects appear even finish the treatment . In the long term, the radiated skin is getting worse “. Adequate hydration, with special protections, skin offers numerous advantages in reconstructions and during radiotherapy treatments, which protect but do not interfere in cancer therapy. “Even in very intense radiodermitis can be applied fourth – generation topical steroids because they do not negate the effect of radiotherapy, but improve the epidermal component.”
