Is there a role for selective axillary dissection in breast cancer?
Surgery is the most effective therapeutic intervention available for the treatment of breast cancer. It has been responsible for obtaining local control and long-term disease-free intervals in more patients over the past century than any other treatment modality. Trends toward earlier stage at diagnosis are likely to increase the importance of surgery and to secure its central role in the treatment of this disease. Unfortunately, during the 1990s the value of excellent local control of breast cancer has been minimized as the disease has come to be considered systemic from inception and as the results of adjuvant-therapy trials in patients with early-stage breast cancer have revealed survival advantages in patients receiving systemic therapy. Only rarely is it acknowledged that surgery alone achieves long-term disease-free states in 70% to 80% of all patients. At the core of this paradigmatic controversy is management of the axilla. The status of the axilla remains the most powerful pre
Related Questions
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- Is axillary lymph node dissection necessary in the routine management of breast cancer?
