How does minimally invasive treatment of early breast cancer work?

  Breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in women. With the trend of younger breast cancer patients, the increase in the proportion of early-stage breast cancer and the development and application of early diagnosis techniques, breast-conserving surgery and minimally invasive axillary surgery will gradually replace the classic “modified radical surgery”.  Since the 1990s, the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer have developed in the direction of minimally invasive surgery. Modern surgery advocates that while treating the disease, patients’ spiritual and psychological health and quality of life should be taken into consideration as much as possible. Breast-conserving axillary can not only meet the requirements of traditional surgery for radical treatment, but also well meet the post-operative breast function and cosmetic effects, improve the patients’ quality of life, and realize the minimally invasive breast-conserving treatment for breast cancer patients.  Axillary lymph node dissection is an important part of traditional breast cancer surgery. However, the rate of axillary lymph node metastasis in early-stage breast cancer is 38%, which means that nearly two-thirds of breast cancer patients with axillary lymph node dissection are over-treated, and axillary lymph node dissection can cause some patients to develop complications such as edema of the affected upper extremity, joint movement disorders, numbness and pain in the medial forearm, thus conventional axillary lymph node dissection for breast cancer has been questioned. The research and development of sentinel lymph node biopsy will help to change this situation. In breast cancer patients with negative sentinel lymph nodes (no metastasis), axillary lymph node dissection (i.e., axillary conserving surgery) is unnecessary, reducing the scope of surgery, reducing surgical trauma and complications, and improving postoperative quality of life. Thus, anterior lymph node biopsy was a landmark advancement in breast cancer surgery in the 1990s. In other words, breast conservation and axillary conservation have become the standard procedure for axillary-negative breast cancer, and it is the goal of breast surgeons to achieve both the most optimal surgical treatment and the most satisfactory cosmetic results with the least trauma. Conference, 90% of experts agreed that sentinel lymph node biopsy should be preferred for patients with indications for sentinel lymph node biopsy and that it is no longer ethical not to offer patients sentinel lymph node biopsy. However, this technique requires high equipment and personnel requirements, and many hospitals, especially primary hospitals, are currently unable to perform it.  Dr. Sun Shuming, head of the Department of Thyroid Breast Surgery and chief of the Department, has accumulated experience in over 100 cases of sentinel lymph node biopsy for many years and is fully capable of carrying out sentinel lymph node biopsy independently, which makes the treatment of early breast cancer patients more rational and individualized, reduces surgical trauma to a minimum, reduces surgical complications, and greatly improves the quality of life of early breast cancer patients.