Breast Specialist Moderates National Panel

Release Date: 06/06/2016

William Sikov, MD, FACP, of the Breast Health Center at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, recently moderated a panel discussion entitled “Cost-Effective Care of the Breast Cancer Patient: How the Disciplines Can Work Together to Reduce Unnecessary Evaluations and Interventions while Preserving Quality” as part of the 26th Annual Interdisciplinary Breast Cancer Conference sponsored by the National Consortium of Breast Centers.

 

Dr. Sikov led a panel comprised of experts in the fields of breast imaging, surgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology that reviewed recent advances in the evaluation and treatment of patients with breast cancer that have improved patient outcomes while avoiding unnecessary tests and treatments.

 

“As we learn more about the biology of breast cancer and how that determines its behavior, we are better able to target our treatments – not just systemic therapies like chemotherapy, but surgery and radiation as well – to those patients who are most likely to benefit from them,” he said. “This can spare other patients the side effects, inconvenience and expense of receiving ineffective treatment and allows their doctors to focus on determining what is most likely to help them, while reducing unnecessary costs to the health care system.”

 

The panel also discussed how progress in one area can help other specialties deliver superior care while limiting side effects, inconvenience and cost for patients, and what discoveries in the near future may further the provision of both high quality and cost-effective breast cancer care.

 

Women interested in making an appointment with Dr. Sikov or other providers with the Breast Health Center at Women & Infants can call (401) 453-7520.

 

About Women & Infants Hospital 

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation’s leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women’s medicine, Women & Infants is the 9th largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country and the largest in New England with approximately 8,500 deliveries per year. A Designated Baby-Friendly® USA hospital, U.S.News & World Report 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospital in Neonatology and a 2014 Leapfrog Top Hospital, in 2009 Women & Infants opened what was at the time the country’s largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation’s first mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation’s only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.