[Guideline concepts of the present-day surgery in breast cancer]

The more important trends of nowadays surgery for breast cancer are those of an advanced rationalization of combined strategies in a multidisciplinary view. Moreover it takes advantages from the availability of an extremely modern diagnostic instrumentation used in search of a truly early diagnosis, based on scheduled screening and surveillance criteria both for general population and particularly for that at risk. In this way it is easier and possible to adopt less radical and more conservative surgical techniques, whose effectiveness is well demonstrated in association with adjuvant treatment thanks to the convergence of multiple competences. The better results of the last years are certainly related to the collaboration of surgeons with oncologists, thanks to the ever more effectiveness of adjuvant chemo- and radiotherapy, that make more acceptable the attitude for the reconstructive and the conservative surgery whenever possible. This interpretation of the actual positive results of breast cancer surgery point the way to follow, and are the basis for hoping further improvement in the treatment of this disease, ever more efficacious whilst that diagnosis precocious be more and more.