In the past, it seemed to be unquestionable medical knowledge that once you had breast cancer, you lost your entire breast. Is this still the case today, given the unprecedented advances in medicine? One wonders. Breast preservation is now widely recommended abroad as the preferred surgical option for early and mid-stage breast cancer. Unfortunately, breast-conserving treatment is still very uncommon in China, and the majority of breast cancer patients who are suitable for breast preservation are permanently deprived of the opportunity to maintain their quality of life and psychological balance. The physical and psychological impact of losing a breast on a woman is enormous, a pain that is unimaginable to ordinary people and becomes more pronounced the more society evolves. First of all, there is no doubt that breast preservation surgery can improve the quality of life, but does it mean that it will cost the patient’s life? In fact, as long as the indications are properly mastered preserving breast treatment method will not reduce the chances of survival. To date, numerous clinical practices in China and abroad have demonstrated that breast-conserving surgery with postoperative radiotherapy can achieve the same long-term survival rates as the “traditional” method of mastectomy, with no difference in the 5-, 10-, and 15-year survival rates between the two methods. Because breast cancer is largely a systemic disease, the main threat to life from breast cancer is distant metastasis to internal organs. Therefore, the primary means of ensuring a patient’s chance of survival lies in preventing and treating distant metastases, and the extent of local excision is not a major determinant of patient survival. Secondly, there is a concern that without complete mastectomy, the patient will be prone to recurrence. This concern is superfluous, as clinical studies have confirmed that mastectomy and breast conservation with radiotherapy not only have the same long-term survival rate, but also do not show a significant difference in the local recurrence rate. The research on the rationality of breast-conserving treatment is one of the most convincing clinical studies in the history of medicine, so much so that in 1990, the National Cancer Institute officially announced at the Consensus Development Conference on Breast Cancer Treatment that breast-conserving treatment is as effective as mastectomy, and strongly advocated the application of this method for the treatment of stage I and II breast cancer. It is no wonder that the implementation of modified radical surgery for breast cancer by Nancy Reagan, wife of the sitting U.S. president in 1989, was criticized by U.S. breast cancer authorities and the media as “setting U.S. medicine back 10 years. Of course, the fact that some hospitals are not equipped to carry out breast-preserving surgery unprincipled has caused some damage to patients and made them fearful of this treatment measure, which has objectively hindered the popularity of this procedure. Here, we also emphasize that breast conservation treatment must be carried out with strict control of the “three strictures”: 1. Strict control of indications and contraindications, of which the mastery of contraindications is particularly important. The preoperative examination should be standardized to determine the suitability of this treatment. It must be emphasized that the search for cosmetic results should never come at the cost of reduced survival and increased risk of recurrence. 2. Rigorous treatment protocols and a high standard of treatment team are required. It should be emphasized that breast preservation treatment is a multidisciplinary and closely collaborative treatment process, which requires a high level of skill and collaboration among surgeons, pathologists, radiologists and chemotherapists, and this requirement may be more refined than that of radical treatment. 3. Strict follow-up system. Emphasize the specialized, institutionalized and standardized follow-up. With the development of medicine and the increasing demand for beauty, breast cancer treatment will be more humane, but strict indications, regular and standardized treatment and follow-up are the prerequisites to ensure the efficacy of breast-conserving surgery. It is no longer a dream for breast cancer patients to stay alive and beautiful.