On December 21, 2015, a day after my 44th birthday, I was diagnosed with Grade 1 cancer classified as ER+/PR+ (Estrogen Receptor positive/Progesterone Receptor positive) in two areas of my right breast. It was discovered during a routine check-up in November and further mammography and biopsy testing confirmed the results. Since I had already been seeing Dr. Bretz regularly for Infrared scans (instead of mammograms), and researching his
work for PR purposes, I was fully aware
of his successful treatment of specific types of breast cancer in women.
On Saturday, January 16, 2016, Dr. Bretz killed the tumor in my breast via cryoablation, which uses the application of extremely cold temperatures (cryo) to destroy diseased tissue (ablation) including cancer cells. The procedure was done in his office, took 20 minutes and consisted of a probe being inserted through the tumor and frozen with liquid nitrogen. This method of treatment effectively increases the kill zone to a much larger area surrounding the tumor, requires no surgery or loss of breast tissue and recovery time is immediate. An hour later, we were toasting with a glass of wine at the restaurant across the street.
Dr. Bretz’s surgical career spans over 30 years and includes being an integral part
of the open heart surgical team at Eisenhower Memorial Hospital in Rancho Mirage, CA where they performed over 4000 open heart procedures (having lowest mortality rate in the country in
1983 and 1984) and pioneered techniques such as left ventricular reconstruction. He was privileged to be first assistant on First Lady Betty Ford’s heart surgery before becoming the designated principal investigator for the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast Project (NSABP). His team successfully treated invasive breast cancer without surgery using just neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation.