Having breast cancer is terrible for most women. At the current stage of treatment in China, most patients have to have their breast removed in order to treat breast cancer, and the pain of losing the breast causes great psychological pressure to patients and greatly reduces their quality of life. However, according to the internationally popular treatment method, most patients’ breasts can be preserved, which means that breast-conserving surgery is adopted to treat breast cancer while preserving the breast, which is a symbol of femininity. Treatment strategies for breast cancer The treatments for breast cancer are summarized as follows: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and biologic targeted therapy, among which surgery and radiotherapy are local treatments, while chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and biologic targeted therapy are systemic treatments. The treatment of breast cancer must be standardized and comprehensive, and the biological behavior of the tumor should be analyzed according to various immunohistochemical indexes, so that an individualized and tailor-made treatment plan can be formulated for each patient, such as different chemotherapy regimens according to the patient’s condition and the number of metastases in the axillary lymph nodes; patients with ER or PR(+) breast cancer should receive endocrine therapy; for Her-2(+) breast cancer Patients should consider using biologic targeted therapy, and should adjust their chemotherapy and endocrine therapy regimens, etc. Only in this way can the best treatment effect be achieved. Nowadays, the treatment concept of breast cancer has shifted from “maximum tolerable treatment” to “minimum effective treatment”, which means that breast cancer treatment should adopt a comprehensive treatment plan, and each treatment should be the least traumatic, least harmful and most targeted, while ensuring the efficacy. In other words, we should adopt a comprehensive treatment plan for breast cancer treatment, and each treatment method should be the least invasive, least harmful and most targeted treatment method to ensure the efficacy, so that the best efficacy can be achieved with the least harm to breast cancer patients. What is breast-conserving surgery? Breast-conserving surgery is the surgical removal of cancerous lesions in the breast and the removal of lymph nodes in the armpit or anterior lymph nodes, followed by radiation therapy to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast, so that the treatment effect of traditional radical surgery can be achieved without removing the affected breast. The goal is to achieve the same survival rate as radical surgery through breast-conserving surgery and radiation therapy, while controlling the local recurrence rate of the affected breast and achieving some aesthetic results in the affected breast after surgery. Since this procedure requires high requirements for surgeons, pathologists, radiologists and equipment, and poor treatment of any one of them may lead to high local recurrence rate or unsatisfactory breast appearance, it is only carried out by some doctors in some large hospitals in China. It is well known that any kind of radical surgery will cause the patient to lose one side of the breast, resulting in a lack of shape and causing complications such as edema and numbness of the upper limbs and partial loss of function after surgery. Breast-conserving surgery, on the other hand, reduces complications by preserving the breast and reducing the scope of surgery, and increases patients’ self-confidence after surgery, which greatly improves their quality of life. Are all breast cancers suitable for breast-conserving surgery? Which patients are suitable for breast-conserving surgery? Firstly, the patient should have the desire of breast conservation, the tumor in the breast is not a multicenter lesion, secondly, the size of the tumor is appropriate to the proportion of the breast, and the tumor has not invaded the pectoral muscle and skin. There is no strict restriction on the location and size of the tumor. Because breast-conserving surgery also requires removal of axillary lymph nodes, therefore axillary lymph node metastasis is not a contraindication to breast-conserving surgery. For some locally advanced breast cancer patients with huge tumors, if they wish to have breast-conserving surgery, they can undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy or endocrine therapy and then operate after the tumor shrinks, which still has more than 50% chance of preserving the breast. For some multicenter breast cancer patients and breast cancer patients who are not sensitive to chemotherapy, if they have a strong desire for breast conservation, they can have their breasts reconstructed through postoperative stage I mammaplasty surgery, which does not affect the therapeutic effect of breast cancer and the patients will not have the bad psychological stimulation of losing their breasts. In general, patients with the following conditions are not suitable for breast-conserving surgery: multiple lesions in the breast and located in different quadrants of the breast; radiation therapy to the affected breast; breast cancer in pregnancy; persistent positive margins of the resected specimen during breast-conserving surgery; patients with collagen vascular disease, scleroderma, and active SLE. Is breast-conserving surgery prone to recurrence? Breast-conserving surgery has a higher rate of postoperative local recurrence than radical surgery if the resection is not clean or radiotherapy is not administered, so the key to this procedure is clean margins and radiotherapy must be administered after surgery. The results of standard breast-conserving surgery are the same as radical surgery, and the satisfaction rate of breast appearance is over 80%.