Commentary (Mendenhall): Treatment of Complications After Breast-Conservation Therapy
August 1st 2003Breast-conserving therapy maywell be the best-studied therapyin all of medicine, with dataavailable from seven mature prospectiverandomized trials that comparedoutcomes with the “gold standard” ofablative mastectomy, as well as datafrom specific programs across thecountry and globe, reflecting a broadrange of clinical and technical skillsand philosophic and technical variationson the theme of breast-conservingtherapy. However, relatively littlehas been published on the late effectsof this therapy. Frassica et al havedone an excellent job of producing adescriptive catalog of the majority ofpotential late effects in patients whosurvive breast-conserving therapy,complete with suggestions regardingmanagement.