An Extra Effort Can Eliminate The Need For Second Breast Cancer Surgery

After the recently conducted controlled trial of different breast cancer surgery techniques, the researchers have claimed that it will be beneficial if the surgeons remove an extra bit of the tissue during the first surgery itself. The team believes that the risk of a second operation will be nearly halved by doing so.

The team of researchers from Yale University further claimed that removing a bit of extra surrounding tissue while removing the tumour poses no harm in terms of cosmetic outcome of the operation. The researchers are calling this technique of more aggressive tissue removal as the “cavity shave margin technique.”

"Now that we have data from a Level 1 randomized controlled trial, many surgeons are changing their practice. It's really hard to ignore Level 1 evidence that shows you can cut the reoperation rate in half without changing the cosmetic outcome or increasing complications. That's kind of a no-brainer," explained lead author Dr Anees Chagpar, in a statement.

The researchers have further cleared that the technique cannot increase the lifespan of the breast cancer patients. However, the technique has been proved to be effective in reducing the need for a follow-up surgery and treatments.

During the Level 1 controlled trial, the researchers found that nearly 12 percent of the women who had that extra bit of tissue removed during the breast cancer surgery were found to possess cancerous cells in the removed tissue.

The results of the trial have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.