Breast and Melanoma Surgical Oncology in Rochester

Research is integrated into practice at Mayo Clinic, and Mayo breast surgeons and melanoma surgeons are involved in many research studies and clinical trials to discover new and improved methods of treatment.

Recent surgical research areas include:

Breast cancer

• Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) vaccine trial
• Atypia topical tamoxifen trial
• Cancer risks for mutations in breast cancer predisposition genes
• Robotic nipple-sparing mastectomy for patients at increased risk of breast cancer
• Endocrine therapy prior to surgery for invasive lobular carcinoma
• Novel therapeutic agents in patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (ISPY2)
• CDK4/6 inhibitors for chemotherapy resistant triple-negative breast cancer
• Omission of axillary lymph node dissection in patients with a positive sentinel node after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (A11202)
• Breast cancer and the microbiome

Melanoma

• Neoadjuvant combinatorial immunotherapy for stage III melanoma
• Markers of immune response, resistance and toxicity in melanoma
• Prospective study of clinical-genomic tumor profiling in predicting sentinel lymph node status and risk of recurrence in early-stage melanoma
• Melanoma diagnostics improvement through imaging interpretation
• Minimally invasive lymph node dissection to help minimize morbidity and improve quality of life

Mayo Clinic breast surgeons together with plastic surgery and reconstructive surgeons are offering nipple areola nerve grafting for selected patients undergoing nipple-sparing mastectomy, aiming to improve sensation after the procedure.

Research labs

Explore research labs.

Research centers and programs

• Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer SPORE
• Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center — Research
• Melanoma Research Lab
• Melanoma and Skin Cancer Research Program
• Women's Cancer Program

Publications

See a list of publications on breast-related surgical topics by Mayo Clinic authors on PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine.

Research Profiles