Evaluation of different oncoplastic procedures in the management of breast cancer from an aesthetic point of view

Abstract

Background Breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute, is the most common cancer in women in Egypt as it accounts for ∼38.8% of the total malignancies among Egyptian women. For many women with early-stage breast cancer, a combination of partial mastectomy and radiation therapy referred to as breast-conserving therapy is preferable to total mastectomy. Objective To evaluate the different oncoplastic techniques for the management of breast cancer from an esthetic point of view. Patients and methods This was a prospective, analytical study that included 30 patients aiming to clinically assess the oncoplastic surgical techniques used for the management of early-stage breast cancer. This study was conducted at the Bahya Specialized Breast Cancer Hospital and Ain Shams University Hospitals. Results In our study, none of the patients had any malignant recurrence as confirmed by the pathologist in our multidisciplinary team proving that we had performed a safe oncoplastic technique from the oncological point of view. The follow-up of the malignant recurrence was for the first 6 months as this was the time limitation of our study. In our study, we were able to conduct an excellent cosmetic outcome for relatively large tumor excisions with 90% of the cases falling in excellent and very good score groups with a mean cosmetic outcome score of 4.53. The remaining 10% fall in the good and fair score groups as those patients noticed asymmetry of the two breasts in front of the mirror as they refused bilateral breast reduction mastopexy. None of our cases have had a poor or an ugly score. Conclusion The choice of the oncoplastic technique is mainly based on the location of the tumor, size of the breast, and distance of the tumor from the nipple–areola complex.