The curability of breast cancer.

Abstract

The day-to-day treatment of breast cancer takes little account of the undoubted uncertainty that exists about its curability. This question should not be shelved as irrelevant for there are lessons to be learnt from this very uncertainty about the biological nature of the disease. We know now that 20-30,) of patients diagnosed as having early breast cancer will have a normal life expectation after local treatment; about a quarter of these have axillary node infiltration detected in the mastectomy specimen. In the light of these results it is surely complacent to continue our current practice of subjecting at least 70?O of women with primary disease to a futile mutilating procedure without further questioning.