The Quality of Life after Breast Cancer — Solving the Problem of Lymphedema

Abstract

In the past 30 years we have witnessed an assault on the view that breast cancer can be treated as a regional disease solely by aggressive surgical techniques. First to be challenged and abandoned was radical mastectomy, and soon afterward segmental mastectomy or lumpectomy was demonstrated to be as effective as modified radical mastectomy.¹ Sentinel-node biopsy, which may lead to the elimination of axillary dissection in women with early-stage disease, represents the newest challenge to traditional surgical approaches to the treatment and staging of breast cancer.² These changes have been driven by a better understanding of the systemic nature of . . .