For breast cancer, protecting the armpit is more important than protecting the breast

Breast-conserving surgery is for patients with early breast cancer, specifically stage 1 and stage 2 breast cancer patients. The biggest advantage of breast-conserving surgery is that it improves the patient's quality of life after surgery.

There are many advantages to preserving the armpits. The most important goal is to restore the shape of the armpits and normalize all functions of the upper limbs. If an axillary clearance surgery is performed, some people will experience sensory problems and edema, and they will have to avoid blood pressure measurement, blood draws, mosquito bites, arm swings, and sleep compression on this arm for the rest of their lives, because it is easy to swell and get infected. For example, if you get pricked by a fish bone at home, it will get infected. An arm that already has a disease is more likely to get infected in the future. From a functional point of view, it is more meaningful than preserving the breast.

Therefore, a sentinel lymph node biopsy is performed to pick out the lymph nodes in the axillary lymph nodes that are most likely to metastasize. If this lymph node has not metastasized, there is no need for axillary dissection. We call this surgery axillary preservation. This surgery can be performed under local anesthesia, so that the patient will feel when the nerve is touched during the operation, and the damage can be minimized. Sentinel lymph node biopsy is only a minor operation, which saves a lot of surgical costs.

Female friends are advised to do more screening, because only with early detection will there be more treatment options, such as breast conservation, axillary conservation, and even a greater chance of not undergoing chemotherapy.