[Breast cancer surgery from the viewpoint of quality of life]

Recently, cancer therapy has been evaluated not only for the therapeutic results themselves but also in the quality of life of the treated patients. The first category of such efforts in breast cancer surgery is the introduction of conservative surgery, that is, muscle preserving operation, partial mastectomy, subcutaneous mastectomy and so on. The second approach is breast reconstruction after mastectomy, which has been improved with the progress in plastic surgery. Recent problems in the above respects in Japan are discussed.