Study Probes Effect of Anesthesia on Breast Cancer Outcomes

A Stony Brook-led study will investigate where anesthesia management during breast cancer surgery affects long-term patient outcomes.

Surgery offers the best hope to cure breast cancer when disease does not spread. However, breast cancer that spreads to distant organs accounts for most of breast cancer deaths. Therefore, researchers continue to investigate how breast cancer metastasizes and what causes or affects disease spread.
Jun Lin, MD, PhD, a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, leads a research team studying the effects of anesthetics on metastasis following breast cancer surgery.
“The purpose of the study is to provide the rationale for an evidence-based anesthesia protocol to reduce postoperative metastasis in breast cancer patients,” he explains.  “A new protocol could help to reduce mortality from the disease.”
To support this research, Dr. Lin received the Peter T. Rowley Breast Cancer Scientific Research Project Award from the New York State Department of Health. The grant totals $360,000 in funding for two years ending December 31, 2020.