Surgical margins in breast conservation.
Int J Surg
; 11 Suppl 1: S69-72, 2013.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24380558
ABSTRACT
Breast cancer is the most common tumor affecting women worldwide. Breast-conserving therapy (BCT) followed by irradiation nowadays is the treatment of choice for early-stage disease; there is no difference in long-term survival between mastectomy and BCT combined with external radiotherapy. A positive margin is associated with increased risk of local recurrences after BCT for invasive breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ. The exact definition of an adequate surgical margin after breast cancer resection has long been debated among physicians and represents an area of considerable variation in clinical practice. There is a lack of standardization in the pathology methods of margin evaluation, which yields little consensus regarding what constitutes an adequate negative margin. As a consequence, patient management varies widely based on the threshold that surgeons accept for adequate margins and the subsequent need for re-excision. We analyze and discuss recent literature about this topic both from the pathological and from the surgical point of view.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Breast Neoplasms
/
Mastectomy, Segmental
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Surg
Year:
2013
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italy