Locoregional treatment of primary breast cancer

Guidelines for the locoregional treatment of primary breast cancer were last published by the US National Institutes of Health in 1991. Since then, new surgical and radiotherapeutic techniques have been developed, clinical trials have provided new evidence, and intriguing long-term effects have emerged from global metadatabases. A revision of these guidelines is therefore necessary and timely. To address this concern, in October 2008, a group of opinion leaders from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States who have worked and published in the field of locoregional treatment met and collectively prepared and approved the described set of recommendations for the use of surgery and radiotherapy in primary breast cancer outside of clinical trials.