In an editorial published on bmj.com Monica Morrow, chief of breast service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York and Anne Burnett Windfohr chair in clinical oncology, alerts that minimally invasive breast surgery may compromise rates of healing in favor of improved cosmetic results.

"We must ensure that surgical approaches designed to improve cosmetic outcomes do not increase local failure and the risk of subsequent death from breast cancer," says Morrow.

Morrow explains that when planning a breast cancer surgery, effectiveness, safety, and aesthetics need to be considered. However, surgical procedures have gradually committed to cosmetics results over the past 30 years.

According to Morrow’s editorial, the oncological safety of new techniques with minimal skin incision, such as oncoplastic and endoscopic surgery, should be carefully evaluated. The author worries that the gains in survival rates seen in the last ten years can be lost due to low demand for thorough oncological and cosmetic evaluations.

She also indicates that oncoplastic surgery and minimally invasive breast surgery are emergent fields that require a meticulous evaluation of patient reported outcomes to guarantee that new surgeries truly improve results essential to patients.

"The local treatment of breast cancer is based on the results of numerous high quality clinical trials and is therefore a model for evidence-based care. As we attempt to advance from good to great cosmetic outcomes it is important that we remember this," concludes Morrow.

[Source: Medial News Today]