Connecticut Breast Health Initiative

Aims to Reduce Return Visits of Breast Cancer Patients to the Operating Room.

Breast cancer patients may need to return to the operating room less frequently based on research that began in Connecticut and has been published by a prominent medical journal, following a multi-state, multi-institutional study funded in part by the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative (CT BHI).

NEW HAVEN — Removing a small amount of extra tissue around a breast cancer tumor may keep a patient from having a recurrence of the cancer or of having to return to the operating table because not all of the malignant cells were removed in the first operation.

That’s the theory that’s being tested in a nationwide clinical trial sponsored by the Yale Cancer Center called SHAVE2. Dr. Anees Chagpar, assistant director of global oncology at the Yale School of Medicine and former director of the Breast Center, is the principal investigator.