Breast Radiotherapy after Lumpectomy — No Longer Always Necessary

Breast-conserving surgery followed by radiotherapy is the standard of care for women with small breast cancers who wish to avoid mastectomy. This approach achieves good local control, does not disturb the women's body image or impair survival, 1 and has been an important step forward in the management of this disease. Several trials have compared breast-conserving surgery plus postoperative radiotherapy with breast-conserving surgery alone, and all have shown an increased risk of local recurrence if radiotherapy is omitted but no difference in survival. One of the largest of these trials, the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-06 study, . . .