Dr. Kirby Bland: Breast cancer's biggest enemy

• Published in: The American journal of surgery 2023-09, Vol.226 (3), p.308-309
• Main Author: Weigel, Ronald J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Breast; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms; Cancer therapies; Careers; Disease; Education; Estrogens; Female; Humans; Influence; Leadership; Lumpectomy; Lymph nodes; Mastectomy; Medical research; Melanoma; Neoplasms; Oncology; Radiation; Sarcoma; Surgeons; Surgery; Survival; Textbooks; Womens health
• ISSN: 0002-9610; 1879-1883; 1879-1883
• DOI: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2023.05.012

B04 was a randomized trial initiated in 1971 with over 1000 women with breast cancer, which compared radical mastectomy vs. total mastectomy and radiation vs. modified radical mastectomy.1 The data showed that there was no difference in disease free survival, recurrence free survival, or overall survival comparing these different surgical treatments, leading to the conclusion that there was no advantage to the surgical treatment of breast cancer with radical mastectomy. Dr. Bland's leadership of this impressive research endeavor at UAB highlights the fact that his focus was not just the surgical approach, but involved a multi-modality treatment for breast cancer. In Dr. Bland's Presidential address of the Society of Surgical Oncology, he also noted the isolation and characterization of GPR30, which was a gene that we cloned and described back in 1997 and his group went on to show that this receptor mediated response to estrogen in breast cancer.3,4 He also noted the need for contributions by surgeons in basic biomedical research, which should be maintained and enhanced. Dr. Timothy Yeatman, also a former trainee, noted that Dr. Bland “has made so many significant contributions to breast cancer management; he had tremendous influence through the careful study of axillary lymph node dissection and biological role of lymph nodes on recurrence and progression; he is the world's greatest authority for breast cancer”.