Breast cancer: 15,000 patients benefited from the “consultation in one day”

One morning, Valérie feels a lump in her breast. She very quickly undergoes an ultrasound and a mammogram which prove to be doubtful. The puncture is essential, but it cannot be performed for three weeks. His doctor then referred him to “The consultation and assessment in one day” at the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif.

There is only one objective for this rather special consultation: to specify the nature of this anomaly during the day. Faced with this challenge, large resources have been brought together, with a key word: multidisciplinarity. A whole battery of specialists is mobilized to give a name to this ball, which generates an even bigger one in Valérie’s throat. Oncologists, surgeons, radiologists, pathologists, all breast specialists, are available to make a diagnosis, and possibly offer treatment.

An iconoclastic oncologist

At the origin of this original initiative, an outstanding personality of the Institute, Suzette DELALOGE. It was in 2004. Since then she has become head of the mammary pathology committee, in a word head of the breast pathology service and all this without having the title of professor, another originality in this very conventional environment of oncology.

And it works ! Since 2004, this consultation, which takes place only one day a week, has welcomed more than 15,000 people, which places it in the largest structure of this type in the world!

And in 90% of cases, if the anomaly is a mass, namely, a lump or a nodule, the exact diagnosis is obtained within the day. In case of micro calcifications, a few days are necessary.

Societal evolution

The point of doing it all in one day is not just the idea of ​​saving time on cancer. For most of them, waiting 3 or 4 weeks after the discovery of the abnormality does not greatly influence the prognosis. On the other hand, this need to know as quickly as possible corresponds more to a societal evolution where everything goes very quickly, where impatience dominates, than to a medical necessity.

If the certified copy of “The consultation in one day” does not exist anywhere else in France, other diagnostic structures exist: smaller, they still offer the “one day”. Others provide a diagnosis in 2-3 days, but patients need to come twice.

For Valérie, this day in the first reference center for cancerology that has become the IGR, will end with excellent news: her ball is benign and the whole team “does not even want to see her again” …