Surgical Management of Early Breast Cancer

Abstract

By definition, early breast cancer is defined as breast cancer that has not spread beyond the breast or the axillary lymph nodes. This includes ductal carcinoma in situ and stage I, stage IIA, stage IIB and stage IIIA breast cancers. Early-stage breast cancers are potentially curable and always include surgical removal of breast tumour and axillary nodes. Surgery alone will result in long-term survival for a select group of patients, depending on cancer biology and the tumour stage.