Radical Mastectomy for Carcinoma of the Breast

RADICAL mastectomy, long the standard and generally accepted treatment for cancer of the breast, has recently been criticized by McWhirter1 , 2 and others3 4 5 6 as being often ineffective and even harmful. Axillary dissection in the presence of gross axillary metastases, it has been said, may actually shorten life by exacerbating disease in the lymphatics. It is the purpose of this paper to report survival results in patients with carcinoma of the breast treated by the standard radical mastectomy, comparing our results with those described by McWhirter1 , 2 and others who believe that the treatment of choice for operable carcinoma of the breast is . . .