Short YouTube transcript (doctor Robert Whitfield MD) describing a 2016 clinical encounter: a breast cancer survivor sought explantation and requested an "en bloc" explant (a pathology-derived technique for tumor removal). The patient had normal labs/studies but reported fatigue; she sought the surgeon in Austin for removal and to "go flat."
And then Fast forward to 2016. I had a breast cancer patient come to me who wanted to go flat. She wanted her reconstruction taken down. I had not performed it. And she had retired in Austin, where I practice now, and sought me out for this care. I did her exam, looked at all of her laboratories and her studies, and everything was normal. She did have fatigue, which many patients who've had cancer therapy suffer from. And so when I did her procedure, she asked me something very, very specific that I'd never been asked my entire career that now is almost 30 years old. She asked me to do her explant in an in block way. And so enblock is a pathology term that you use to take tumors out.
