Mastectomy & Lumpectomy Surgeries
There are four main types of surgeries used to remove cancer from the body.
Lumpectomy
Just a part of the breast is removed in a lumpectomy. Often used when there is a small cancer in one location in the breast that hasn’t spread to the rest of the body. Often a lumpectomy is followed by radiation called XRT or “External Radiation Therapy”. This helps prevent cancer from coming back.
Survival outcomes in early stage breast cancer are identical for both mastectomy and lumpectomy with Radiation.
After surgery, there is no known tumor left behind. Lumpectomy alone cures most women with early-stage breast cancer. However, a significant percentage of women will recur in the same breast within a year or two without additional therapy. Using radiation cuts this risk in half!
When radiation isn’t a good option, such as having a skin disease that would not like radiation, having no “clear margins”, if radiation has already been used on the breast in an earlier cancer, if you are pregnant or if your breast is too small to be practical for a lumpectomy, a mastectomy is usually suggested. There are three main kinds of mastectomy:
Simple or Total Mastectomy
This removes the whole breast, but doesn’t remove the muscles or most lymph nodes if any. This is often used for women with Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS), or women who are having a preventative mastectomy.
Modified Mastectomy
This has the same traits as the Simple Mastectomy, but includes more lymph nodes. This is the most common type of mastectomy.
Radical Mastectomy
This type of mastectomy removes the same as a Modified Mastectomy, but includes the chest muscles as well. This is used when cancer has spread to the chest muscles. Radical mastectomies have become less common due to new procedures and studies.
