Breast-conserving treatment of breast cancer--oncological and reconstructive aspects

Breast-conserving surgery combined with radiotherapy has become the treatment of choice for the majority of women presenting with primary breast cancer over the last 20 years. The extent of local excision remains a controversial issue in breast-conserving surgery. The wider the margins of clearance, the lower the risk of incomplete excision and thus of local recurrences, but the greater the amount of tissue removed, the higher the risk of visible deformity leading to an unacceptable cosmetic result. This clash of interests is most evident when attempting breast-conserving surgery in patients with smaller breast-tumor ratios. The widespread popularity of breast-conserving surgery has focused attention on new oncoplastic techniques that can avoid unacceptable cosmetic results. Partial mastectomy defects can be reconstructed by volume displacement, recruiting and transposing local glandular or dermoglandular flaps into the resection site, or by volume replacement, importing volume from elsewhere to replace the amount of tissue resected.