Breast Cancer
From Surgery to Ablation: Emerging Approaches to Personalised Breast Cancer Treatment
A case-based multidisciplinary dialogue on the expanding treatment landscape in breast cancer — and the growing role of interventional radiology.
MAMI, Johannesburg
University of Pretoria · Milpark Hospital
About This Webinar
Never before have we had as many options for breast cancer treatment. But with that breadth comes both opportunity and complexity. Alongside established surgical approaches, interventional radiology is emerging as a significant new frontier: image-guided ablation techniques are increasingly available, offering targeted tumour destruction with minimal invasiveness and shorter recovery.
For many patients — particularly those who are elderly, high-surgical-risk, or seeking to avoid mastectomy and preserve the breast — these approaches are changing what “best treatment” looks like.
But knowing the landscape is only the beginning. The real clinical challenge is knowing which option is right for this patient, at this stage, in this context.
This Women’s Month, we bring together interventional radiologist Dr Peter Schoub and Dr Carol Ann Benn — one of South Africa’s leading breast cancer surgeons — to work through real patient cases and explore the full treatment spectrum: from surgery to ablation, and every decision point in between. This is not a lecture. It is a working clinical dialogue, built around the cases your patients actually present.
Join us on 20 August and let’s explore the best options for your patients.
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1Describe the current landscape of breast cancer treatment options — from conventional surgery and oncological therapy to emerging image-guided ablation techniques — and understand where interventional radiology fits within the multidisciplinary treatment pathway.
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2Identify appropriate patient profiles for ablative intervention, including those for whom avoiding mastectomy is a clinical priority and those where surgical risk, tumour characteristics, or patient preference make IR-guided ablation a viable alternative or complement to surgery.
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3Distinguish between the principal ablation modalities used in breast cancer management — including cryoablation, microwave ablation, and radiofrequency ablation — and understand the technical and clinical factors that inform modality selection.
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4Apply a structured decision-making framework to real patient cases, drawing on the multidisciplinary dialogue between surgical oncology and interventional radiology to determine optimal treatment sequencing and referral pathways.
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5Recognise the referral triggers and clinical scenarios that warrant an IR consultation in the breast cancer patient, enabling clinicians across specialities to integrate IR appropriately into their practice.
Meet the Panel
Two of South Africa’s leading clinicians in breast cancer and interventional radiology in dialogue.
