Teamwork improves breast cancer management in the community.

The weekly breast cancer conference has clearly improved this community's ability to care for breast cancer patients. The range of issues has been broad. Some of the discussions are related to various aspects of surgical care, pathology issues such as specimen marking and evaluation, the use of prognostic indicators, adjuvant treatment, hormone replacement, bone marrow transplantation, post lumpectomy mammography, etc. The list is endless and expands every week. This conference format is very feasible in a community setting and has ongoing in-depth benefits. Each host hospital designates one person to regularly coordinate preparation of the host hospital's conference. This ensures timely retrieval of all related diagnostic information for review by the radiologist and pathologist. Additionally, the case history is typed and available only on the morning of the conference.