Can minimally invasive treatment of breast cancer be accomplished through lumpectomy?

  Surgery is the main treatment modality for breast cancer. As the second sex organ of women, the 500px-long surgical scar and loss of breast shape after traditional breast cancer surgery seriously affects patients’ self-confidence and emotions. Post-operative lymphedema and upper limb mobility impairment aggravate the difficulties for patients to return to their families and society. How to find a way to safely remove the tumor while maintaining the shape of the breast and significantly reducing the surgical scar has become a common issue for breast surgeons. This is how the Video-Assisted Breast Surgery (VABS) technique was created.  Video-Assisted Breast Surgery (VABS) is a method of performing breast surgery through a lumpectomy using a few poked holes of 0.5 to 30 px in length. Since its clinical application in 1993, it has been widely used in the treatment of stage I and II breast cancer. After long observation and follow-up in many countries and breast centers, it has been confirmed that its radicality is equivalent to that of traditional open surgery, and has become one of the major surgical procedures for breast diseases in Japan and Korea at present.  Compared with the huge surgical scar of traditional surgery, total lumpectomy can preserve the nipple areola while leaving the surface of the breast completely free of surgical scar, and completely maintain the shape of the breast by simultaneously placing an implant or an autologous tissue flap.  In addition, lumpectomy can reduce the two surgical scars required for traditional open surgery to a small incision hidden in the armpit, while ensuring the same curative effect, so that patients who undergo this procedure can truly achieve the amazing effect of “having surgery as if they had never had surgery”.  The lumpectomy of anterior lymph node biopsy avoids unnecessary axillary lymph node dissection and allows many patients to return to work and society as soon as possible without upper limb lymphedema and mobility problems.