Background: The acceptance of local operative therapy for mammary carcinoma has stimulated scrutiny of specific techniques with the goals of minimizing the incidence of local recurrence while optimizing the cosmetic result. Intraductal spread of carcinoma has been established as a major factor in determining the rate of local recurrence after breast-conserving therapy for mammary carcinoma. The relationship of the anatomic location of a recurrent neoplasm to that of the primary tumor is likely to be instructive in evaluating the effectiveness of various proposed approaches to primary excision.
Methods: Using the tumor registry of a tertiary care medical center, the authors reviewed all patients with mammary carcinoma treated with primary local excision during a 9-year period (1984-1992; n = 86), and identified all patients who subsequently experienced local recurrence (n = 5). The pathologic anatomic findings in each case were reviewed carefully and correlated with clinical and mammographic data.
Results: The rate of local recurrence in this series was 5.8%, similar to that of Veronesi's "lumpectomy" group (7%). In all five patients, the recurrent lesion was located in the same breast quadrant, along a radius from the nipple to the edge of the breast disc that crossed the site of the initial lesion.
Conclusion: Local recurrence of mammary carcinoma after breast-conserving operative therapy most often occurs within the same segment; it is therefore proposed that its incidence may be substantially reduced with the use of a primary excision technique (based on normal breast anatomy) that removes en bloc the dominant tumor mass and the associated (possibly diseased) duct system.