[Surgical procedures in therapy of breast carcinoma with reference to the value of axillary endoscopy techniques]

During the last decades the surgical treatment of breast cancer has been dramatically changed. Today breast conservative treatment represents a therapeutic option applicable to nearly 70% of the women. In contrast to this, the technic of axillary dissection remained unchanged. Suzanne et al. proposed an axilloscopic technic to reduce this morbidity. The sometimes unacceptable low lymph node count in the specimen induced us to modify this procedure. In the future the sentinel lymph node concept perhaps offers the possibility to select NO-patients and to spare the axillary dissection completely to this sub-group.