Unsolved questions about conservative treatment of infiltrating breast carcinoma

The majority of patients with breast cancer can be treated by partial mastectomy and radiation therapy. The choice of the treatment involves the estimation of the risk for intramammary recurrence and the ability to achieve satisfactory cosmetic result. Patient selection in breast conserving therapy is dependent on clinical and histologic characteristics of the tumor, but many times the therapeutic decision is not easy. We present a review of the literature in order to try to resolve some contreversed questions about breast conservation in relation to tumor size, margin status, tumor location, multicentricity, histologic subtype or presence of extensive intraductal component, age of patients and genetic factors.