Nonsurgical ablation of primary breast cancer

The potential for these therapies is overwhelming when one considers that as many as 90,000 patients may be candidates annually in the United States. The ideal therapy should be safe, as painless as possible, accessible, and effective in reducing local recurrence. Because of the novelty of these techniques, no therapy has met all of these goals. Even if these ideals are attained, questions remain about how to follow these patients with regard to frequency and imaging modality for local recurrence. As these technologies are refined, and they mature; it is conceivable that the future treatment of breast cancer may be less morbid than the open breast biopsies now being used for just the diagnosis of the disease.