[Conservative surgery and esthetic rehabilitation of carcinoma of the breast].

A careful review of the literature stimulated these comments on current developments in conservative surgery as an alternative to radical mastectomy in stage I and II breast cancer with particular reference to their implications for cosmetic rehabilitation. It is emphasised that the data so far available indicate comparable results in terms of locoregional recurrences, metastases and survival. It is also pointed out that the efficacy of the conservative techniques reflects new concepts of the natural history of breast cancer. The hope is expressed that these encouraging data will be confirmed by more extensive and systematic clinical experiment in order to minimise the indications to more radical surgery which notoriously has such devastating physical and psychological effects that it takes extremely complex and demanding plastic surgery to reshape the patient to psychological sexual and social health.