A historical account of breast cancer surgery: Beware of local recurrence but be not radical

Charles P. Halsted, John R. Benson, Ismail Jatoi

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the late 19th century, William Halsted proposed the radical mastectomy, which became the standard surgical treatment of breast cancer for nearly 100 years. Later in this period, theories suggesting that breast cancer was a systemic disease at inception were championed by Bernard Fisher. This alternative hypothesis of biological predeterminism was based upon results of randomized clinical trials comparing breast conserving therapy with mastectomy, which showed similar overall survival outcomes. Nonetheless, data from meta-analyses suggest that inadequate local therapy can increase risk of local recurrence, which can subsequently increase mortality. In this review, the authors provide an historical account of how local therapy of breast cancer has evolved in the face of improved adjuvant therapies and better understanding of disease biology.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1649-1657
Number of pages9
JournalFuture Oncology
Volume10
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2014

Keywords

  • breast cancer
  • breast conserving surgery
  • historical
  • local therapy
  • radical mastectomy
  • surgery

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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