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Revision surgery for breast cancer
Author(s) -
Thorat Mangesh A.,
Rangole Ashvin,
Nadkarni Mandar S.,
Parmar Vani,
Badwe Rajendra A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/cncr.23839
Subject(s) - medicine , breast cancer , surgery , axilla , lymph node , cancer , general surgery , breast surgery
At Tata Memorial Hospital, as a dedicated breast service at a tertiary cancer center in India, incompletely performed breast surgeries are encountered very frequently; however, there is a lack of published data on incompletely performed breast surgeries, revision surgeries, and their outcomes. Between March 2000 and November 2003, the authors audited 850 breast cancer patients who presented at their institute who had undergone surgery outside the institution. On the basis of study criteria, these patients were evaluated for completeness of surgery. Patients in whom the surgical intervention was considered incomplete were evaluated for a completion revision surgery. Of 850 patients, 424 (50%) had undergone surgical intervention with therapeutic intent. Of these 424 patients, 191 (45%) had received incomplete surgical intervention. Completion revision surgery was performed for 153 patients. Complete data were available for 148 patients, of which 123 patients had residual lymph nodes in the axilla. The median number of lymph nodes dissected was 8, and 64 patients had metastatic lymph node(s) left behind. A high proportion of patients with breast cancer who presented at the institute had undergone incomplete surgery outside in nonspecialty centers. Almost half of those patients who underwent incomplete surgery had surgically excisable disease left behind. The possible detrimental impact of inadequate surgical intervention may be very large in India and in other low‐resource settings. Cancer 2008;113(8 suppl):2347–52. © 2008 American Cancer Society.