Mahmoud El-Tamer



Mahmoud B. El-Tamer, MD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Acting Chief of the Breast Surgery Section at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). He is also an Assistant Attending Surgeon at CUMC and an Attending Surgeon at the Palisades Medical Center/CUMC.

Dr. El-Tamer's clinical specialty is the surgical treatment of benign and malignant diseases of the breast. He is well-known for his research of the non-invasive breast cancer DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) in patients who have had their axillary nodes removed.

In recent years, surgeons have recommended sentinel node biopsy to patients with DCIS in order to remove the lymph nodes closest to the tumor. If these nodes tested positive, the patient would face another round of surgery to remove additional nodes under the armpit. Dr. El-Tamer’s team discovered that a finding of positive cells in the lymph nodes had no long-term effect on the patients' life expectancy. He concluded that most women with DCIS will not benefit from this approach (BreastMD 2007).

Dr. El-Tamer has also partnered with institutions such as the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Sindab/Avon Breast Cancer Foundation, the Veterans Administration’s National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) to complete a national, multi-institutional study on patient safety and clinical outcomes.

Selected Publications
Dr. El-Tamer is the author of multiple studies, reviews, editorials and abstracts, and currently holds a United States Patent for a Detectably Labeled Porphyrin Compound for Identifying the Sentinel Lymph Node (CUMC 2007).


 * Men with breast cancer have a better disease specific survival when compared to women. Mahmoud B. El-Tamer, Ian K. Komenaka, Andrea Troxel, et al. Arch Surg. 2004
 * Predictors of Nonsentinel Node Metastasis in Patients With Breast Cancer After Sentinel Node Metastasis. Kathie-Ann Joseph, Mahmoud El-Tamer, Ian Komenaka, et al. Arch Surg. 2004.
 * Survival and Recurrence After Breast Cancer in BRCA1/2 Mutation Carriers. Mahmoud El-Tamer, Donna Russo, Andrea Troxel, et al. Annals of Surgical Oncology. 2004.
 * Prognoses of T4 Breast Cancer Subsets. Mahmoud El-Tamer, Sabir Hussain, Jeremy Weedon, et al. Annals of Surgical Oncology. 2002.