Breast Cancer Surgery
Can I Keep My Breast?
Often when breast cancer is discovered early, it is small in size and so it is possible to remove only the affected part of the breast and not the entire breast. At other times even when the tumour is larger, neoadjuvant treatment that is administered prior to surgery may have the benefit of reducing the size of the tumour and make breast conservation possible.
Many factors come into play however such as whether there are other foci of tumour in the same breast, the size of the woman’s breast, the need for radiotherapy after breast conservation and the recurrence rates after different type of surgeries.
There is also the option of mastectomy followed by breast reconstruction in the same surgery which gives good functional and aesthetic results. A thorough evaluation and frank discussion with every patient is necessary as every woman’s breast and every woman’s cancer is different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ treatment plan.
