[by Hye-seon Lee, KBMBR]

The breast cancer clinic at Yonsei Cancer Center succeeded in mastectomy and breast reconstruction with robotic surgery for the first time in Korea. Myung-soon Kim(the false name), a patient diagnosed with breast cancer, who underwent mastectomy from the Prof. Hyung-seok Park team at breast surgery and reconstruction surgery from Prof. Dong-won Lee at plastic surgery on 23rd November last year.

Doctors from breast surgery at Breast Cancer Clinic and plastic surgery have prepared for robotic surgery with cadavers and animals since late 2013 to increase satisfaction for patient treatment. The robotic surgery conducted by the team of Prof. Hyung-seok Park and Prof. Dong-won Lee consists of mastectomy that preserves nipple and areola and remains 6cm cut under the arm and axillary lymph node dissection and reconstruction surgery at the same time. Scar is small after surgery and rarely seen because it is located in under the arm. Prof. Park said “in case of the existing dissection method or endoscopic operation, there was limit to secure vision and use surgical instruments through a small window. But when we used robot, it was easy to conduct surgery with extended vision without tremor.” Prof. Park said “if patients with breast cancer at an early stage have to undergo mastectomy because of cancer location and broad microcalcification, I recommend them to undergo robotic surgery. The surgery is good in terms of both breast reconstruction and the least risk of scar as well as the best effect in beauty.” He added “it can be effective to patients who want to undergo mastectomy as a preventive measure because they have BRCA1,2 gene mutations that increase the risk of breast cancer.” An Italian medical team conducted mastectomy with robot and simultaneous breast reconstruction in 2015 for the first time in the world.