If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with cancer, you will have many important decisions to make. There is one very important thing you won't have to worry about – where you can find the best possible treatment for your condition. That's because the best in today's cancer care is available right here, close to home at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center. Surgery for Cancer Patients At Good Samaritan, board certified surgeons provide diagnosis and treatment for a wide variety of cancers. Major cancer surgeries are performed on a daily basis using state-of-the-art techniques in a compassionate setting. Cancers of the breast, lung, gastrointestinal tract, head and neck, as well as soft tissue and gynecological malignancies are all treated here. Some newer techniques are described below. Breast SurgeryA minimally invasive trend in surgery for early stage breast cancer is offered at Good Samaritan. This treatment is defined as lumpectomy (wide excision) with or without removal of the lymph nodes followed by radiation treatment. The advantage of conservative treatment is that a woman no longer has to deal with the psychological and physical impact of removing the breast. The recovery is much quicker from this smaller operation. When faced with a diagnosis of early breast cancer, conservative treatment (lumpectomy) is one of the many options available. The latest focus in surgery today for breast cancer and melanoma is to use less invasive procedures for sampling lymph nodes whenever possible. Sentinel node biopsies, in breast cancer and melanoma tumor patients offer the patient a less extensive procedure with similar cure rates than removal of all lymph nodes. To perform a sentinel node biopsy, a radiotracer is injected into the patient which allows for the identification of the sentinel, or first, lymph node. Only the first node that cancer cells would reach after leaving the original cancer site is targeted and removed with this technique, instead of removing nodes. The sentinel node is then removed through a minor surgical incision to determine whether cancer is present. Only those patients whose sentinel nodes indicate the spread of cancer would need to undergo a more extensive removal of the remaining lymph nodes. Gastrointestinal Cancer Exciting advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques have lead to the use of laproscopic surgery for the treatment of many benign and malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. Surgeons are able to place a camera through a very small incision (less than one half inch) into the abdominal cavity to visualize the site of the tumor. Currently, available techniques allow the physician to remove the tumor using very small incisions. The benefit to the patient is that postoperative pain and discomfort is significantly decreased. In addition, the patient on average is discharged at an earlier time than they would have been using the standard open techniques. Therefore, recovery is faster. Lung Cancer Thoracic surgeons at Good Samaritan are using the latest surgery and minimally invasive techniques to treat early stage lung cancer. Some small tumors can be treated using a Video Assisted Thoracic Surgical (VATs) technique. This treatment, like other minimally invasive techniques results in decreased postoperative pain and a shorter hospital stay.
For more advanced lung cancers, the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves the chances of survival. Patients were previously classified as unresectable. The treatment with chemotherapy prior to surgery has down-staged their tumor allowing them to be candidates for surgical resection. Coordinated treatments by board certified thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, and radiation oncologists provide lung cancer patients with state-of-the-art care. Gynecologic Surgery The hallmark for treating gynecological malignancies is early diagnosis and treatment. This is accomplished by having the patient seek consultation and evaluation by her gynecological specialist on a routine basis. Cancer diagnosis is aided with state-of-the-art CT scans, MRIs and ultrasound services, as well as therapy by our Radiology Department. Gynecological cancer treatment lies in the hands of the board certified gynecologists with the help of the consulting staff of both gynecological and medical oncologists. Urology Urologists at Good Samaritan provide diagnosis for all types of genitourinary malignancies, including prostate, bladder, kidney and testicular cancers. Board certified urologists, skilled in the latest surgical techniques, provide state-of-the-art care. Nerve sparing radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer and neobladder creation for carcinoma of the bladder are some of the cutting-edge procedures currently performed at the Medical Center. The latest advances and procedures are employed to minimize the risk of impotence and incontinence in those patients, yet provide them with the best chance of a cure. The prostate cancer patient also has another alternative. Brachytherapy (radiation) allows the urologist to work in close concert with the radiation oncologist in order to provide prostate cancer patients with another option giving them the best and most complete care possible to treat their cancer. Head and Neck Cancer Myocutaneous flaps, which restore contour to the head and neck after radical surgery, are available at the Medical Center. Myocutaneous flaps use muscle and skin from other areas of the body to cover vital organs exposed after radical surgery. Another new option includes free flap techniques, which enables the surgeon to recreate swallowing tubes postoperatively. For further information, call (631) 376-4444. | 
