Chest-Wall Resection for Locally Recurrent Breast Cancer

AFTER primary surgical treatment, carcinoma of the breast recurs in or near the operative site in 10% to 30% of patients.¹⁻⁵In most of these, local recurrence is often the first manifestation of widespread disease. Indeed, distant metastasis becomes evident in half the patients with chest-wall recurrence within a year.¹,³,⁵,⁶ Surgical excision of locally recurrent carcinoma of the breast thus usually assumes a very limited role. Often this is confined to biopsy for diagnostic confirmation, though occasionally it may be required in the palliation of symptomatic lesions. Surgical procedures for curative purposes are rarely felt to be possible.⁷Reports of radical chest-wall excision for the attempted cure of locally recurrent cancer have appeared only occasionally in the literature.⁸⁻¹⁶Most of these reports have dealt with the technical aspects of resection and the reconstruction of the chest wall. Rarely have there been reports of long-term follow-up of