Advances in Breast Conservation Therapy

Breast conservation therapy (BCT) is now well established as oncologically safe treatment for primary breast cancer, and in fact has been deemed the preferable surgical option in a 1991 National Cancer Institute (NCI) position statement on management of early-stage disease. This consensus was reached after the completion of several prospective, randomized clinical trials confirming survival equivalence in breast cancer patients randomly assigned to receive BCT versus mastectomy. Follow-up as long as 20 years has been reported (Table 1) as well as a metaanalysis of all trials, with stability of the outcome results.