From scalpel to pills?
Carlos A. Garcia-Etienne

Abstract

The fast development of different treatment modalities for breast cancer together with the nature of its multidisciplinary management and the progressive refinement in surgical criteria have brought many to believe that surgery for breast cancer is not as crucial as in the past and it is sometimes even suggested that surgery will fade away in the near future among treatment disciplines of this tumor. However, surgery is the only treatment approach that offers a curative attempt and recent evidence demonstrating the importance of local control indicates that, at early stages, it still represents the most important treatment modality.