Impact of surgical margins on local recurrence rates in breast-conserving surgery

A conservative surgical breast intervention is broadly acceptable as an appropriate treatment option in preliminary stages of breast cancer and is recommended in order to establish oncologic safety while achieving aesthetics of the breast. Therefore, it is of interest to follow-up for five years among 150 patients who received breast-conserving surgery with an understanding of surgical margin status which might be reported positive, close, or negative; the mean incidence of overall local recurrence is estimated at 8%. Higher values, however, were recorded in positive margin patients of 25%. Close and negative margins were significantly at 10% and 5%, respectively. Tumour size and grade, with the margin, are significant indicators of recurrence of p <0.05. In such findings lies the critical relevance of achieving the surgical margins clean in order to minimize the percentage of local recurrences and have better long term results in a patient with carcinoma breast.